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THE HILL OF VISION 



THE HILL OF VISION 

A Forecast of the Great War 

and of Social Revolution with the Coming 
of the New Race 

Gathered from Automatic Writings Ob- 
tained between 1909 and 191 2, and 
also, in 191 8, through the hand 
of John Alleyne, under 
the supervision of 
the author 



BY 

Frederick Bligh Bond 

F.R.I.B.A. 
AUTHOR OF "THE GATE OF REMEMBRANCE" 

Script by JOHN ALLETNE 



BOSTON 

MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 
M D CCCC XIX 



^^^^^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1 91 9, 
BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 



MG 18 1919 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



'Ci.A530540 



it f 



t 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Preface. Ralph Adams Cram ... vii 

Introduction ........ i 

The Prophecies 15 

The War Script of 191 8 20 

DiscuRsus ON Prophecy ,37 

Transcriptions of the Writings . . 47 

On the Segregation of the Chosen 

Race 100 

Postscript. Ralph Adams Cram . . . 116 

Notes 127 

Attestations 130 




PREFACE 

ATE in the summer of 1908 I was staying 
for a time at Erdington Abbey, a 
Benedictine house near Birming- 
ham, and while I was there my friend Dom 
John Chapman, the guest master, sent for 
another architect, Mr. F. Bligh Bond, to 
come to the Abbey in order that he might 
tell me of certain very wonderful happen- 
ings then in process at the ancient and holy 
ruins of Glastonbury. 

Dom Chapman knew well my devotion to 
Glaston, and it appeared that Mr. Bond was 
a kindred spirit; naturally, therefore, I 
awaited his arrival with the keenest in- 
terest. I first went to the most holy place in 
Britain in the year 1886, and thereafter as 
often as I was in England^- some seven or 
eight times in all. From the first it had 
overwhelmed me by its almost mystical in- 
fluence, partly august and enormous history, 
partly dim and evocative tradition, partly 
the sense that the story was not finished, but 
that in some way ^^ these dead bones may 
live " again and the ruined Abbey take its 

[vii] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

place once more as a potent influence for 
good. 

Bond arrived late in the afternoon, and 
that night we sat over the fire in my cell, 
talking furiously and smoking after the 
same fashion. The story he told me was of 
the most extraordinary, but all that part that 
referred to Glaston itself (and at that time, 
i.e., 1908, there was little else) has been set 
down and printed and need not be repeated 
here. " The Gate of Remembrance " is now 
available, and in it may be found one of the 
most remarkable revelations of psychical 
experience ever made public. 

Briefly, the case was this. In the year 
1907 Bond had been put in charge of cer- 
tain excavations at Glaston for the Somer- 
setshire Archaeological Society. One of the 
first problems that offered itself was the site 
of the Ipst " Edgar Chapel " known to have 
been built by Abbots Bere and Whiting 
(the martyr) just before the Suppression. 
The weight of expert opinion was against 
the suggested site east of the retro-choir, and 
earlier excavations had revealed no sign. It 
was at this moment that, almost by chance, 
^^ automatic writing" was brought in to give 
the successful clue. For some time Bond 

[ vili ] 



PREFACE 

and his friend "J. A." had experimented 
with this baffling phenomenon with unim- 
portant or negative results. On the 7th 
November, 1907, the first question was asked 
about Glaston. The answer was in the 
shape of a rough plan showing the Abbey, 
the Chapel of St. Joseph, and the ^' Edgar 
Chapel " occupying the traditional place of 
the Lady Chapel at the east, the drawing 
being clearly signed " Gulielmus Mona- 
chus." Exact and detailed information fol- 
lowed as to dimensions, design, authorship, 
together with explicit directions as to what 
remained and where the digging should 
begin. Thereafter Bond began his excava- 
tions, and at the point indicated, six inches 
below the trial-pits sunk by Mr. St. John 
Hope in his earlier explorations, he struck 
squared stone. At the time he came to Er- 
dington he had cleared the complete foot- 
ings of the chapel, nearly all in situ^ and the 
figures given in the automatic writings were 
proved almost to an inch. 

The next day Bond had to return to Bath, 
but forty-eight hours later I rejoined him 
there, where he was then living, and we 
went at once to Glaston. At that time the 
foundations of the Edgar Chapel had been 

[ix] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

exposed up to the eastern line of Abbot 
Bere's work, while the grave of ^' Radul- 
phus Concellarius " with the skull of " Ea- 
wulf, Yarl of Edgarley," was still open for 
me to see. I examined carefully the Chapel 
foundations and the fragment of the fan 
vaulting that had been found midmost of 
the footings, with its spaces of faded red 
pigment and flecks of gold leaf, sole relic 
of the " certaine roofe in golde and crimson, 
very cunning'' referred to in the automatic 
writing of i6th June, 1908. At this time 
also I was shown some of the original writ- 
ings and was given a full account of the 
circumstances under which they were pro- 
duced. I was not in England again until 
April, 19 1 2, when once more I went to 
Glastonbury where Bond had taken a house 
in order that he might give constant super- 
vision to the excavations, which by that 
time had extended to the great cloister, the 
refectory, and the west end of the Abbey 
church, many discoveries having been made 
of very great archaeological interest. At 
this time I saw the whole mass of writings, 
as I remember, over an hundred foolscap 
pages in all, many of them in a corrupt and 
colloquial "monk Latin." Before coming 

[x] 



PREFACE 

away I urged Bond to write out the whole 
story for publication, on the ground of its 
unique interest, offering, if he would not do 
it himself, to undertake the work on my own 
part. At the time he demurred, giving 
many good reasons why publication should 
at least be postponed. A year or two ago 
he wrote me that he had decided to print so 
much of the automatic writing as referred 
specifically to the Abbey, and the very re- 
markable book ^^The Gate of Remem- 
brance" (Oxford, B. H. Blackwell, New 
York, Longmans, Green & Co.) is now 
available. 

No sooner was this first work successfully 
accomplished than the fountains of psychic 
energy seemed to be unsealed, and for five 
years followed an enormous mass of miscel- 
laneous writings, partly in "monk Latin" 
partly in sixteenth-century English, together 
with more sketches, this time of a quite 
different chapel, every trace of which has 
disappeared from above ground, and the 
actuality of which has not yet been proved 
by the necessary excavations. These ghostly 
communications were signed by "Johannes 
Bryant, monachus et lapidator," Abbot 
Bere, the martyred Abbot Whiting (who 

[xi] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Spells his name ^' Whyttinge") and many 
other religious. Early in the experience, 
however, the crabbed script would break 
off from time to time and a clearer and 
firmer writing take its place. These com- 
munications usually had little to do directly 
with the Abbey, and have strange signa- 
tures, such, for example as " We who are the 
Watchers," "One of the Controllers of 
things that are," "The Nameless One" and 
"The Guardian of things that be as they 
were meant to be." Amongst them, how- 
ever, came suddenly the bold signature " Im- 
perator," then " Caesar Aug." and " Caesar 
Augustus, Pacificator et Imperator." This 
was evidently a somewhat dominating and 
even irritable personality (?) who, on one 
occasion, burst out " Rede, I said it not. I 
said not Ralph of the King Henricus, but 
Ralph the Norman. Taedet damnosum. 
Lege ! — Imperator. Audi me, barbari stul- 
tissimi! Ego Imperator qui feci interpre- 
tationes pro anima insularium. — Caesar." 
It is from him and the various abstractions 
named above that the surprising communi- 
cations have been received. The first hint, 
however, comes from the altogether de- 
lightful "Johannes monachus." This was 

[xii] 



PREFACE 

received on the 30th of December, 1907; 
the first part is quite illegible, then it clears 
up and goes on as follows: 

" . . .The Chapel of Our Lady of Glaston — 
type of spiritual things which are not manifest to you. 
The changes need not alarm you. The reconstructions 
will be the more perfect. Let the State fall in ruins 
and the outward garments of Faith perish — fear not. 

"... For greater things will rise into being — 
great nations and great ideals. We work for it. Be 
willing and strive not against the tide. Up on the crest 
and prosper. All will work for the best. . . . The 
spark will live through the ruins and relight dead fires, 
fire which is still iire but with purer flame. We cannot 
hasten the time but it is sure and is not long de- 
layed. . . ." 

Here, in the form of quite typical ghostly 
generalities, is a strong hint of secular and 
spiritual catastrophe ^^sure and not long de- 
layed," with a great rebuilding thereafter. 
In connection with the ensuing architectural 
and historical revelations, references, veiled 
but not doubtful, were constantly being 
made to this reconstruction, and the Abbey 
itself seemed to be the type ; as for example 
under date of 20th April, 1908. 

" Move, work, and unceasingly persist, and in time 
there will be a place for what once was and ye shall 
know its buildings yet again as they were wont to be, 

[ xiii ] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

the lesser buildings first ; and then cometh one who will 
build the great church — a son of Glaston from beyond 
the sea. Even now he waits and watches. . . . The 
church is always the church, and in the great scheme 
of the world we come soon and our instrument Glaston 
shall find a mighty place. . . . Thus Johannes saith." 

In the excitement of progressive dis- 
coveries and the proving of novel assertions, 
these hints of coming catastrophe received 
little attention. Why should they have 
seemed impressive? The years 1907-14 
were those of the very crest of fat self- 
satisfaction, of material triumph, of wealth, 
luxury, power. The last thing that would 
be thought of was any possible failure or 
breakdown, or even halting of modern civi- 
lization in its imperial progress. In 1909, 
however, and without preface, Imperator 
began his extraordinary series of warnings 
of ill things to come, and these continued 
until the 29th July, 191 1. Then "Caesar" 
falls silent, but towards the end of the year 
191 2, there comes from another source a 
repetition of the warning of world-war. 
Then in March, 191 8, begins the astonishing 
series of mysterious writings called by Mr. 
Bond "The War Script of 1918." 

The narrative of " The Gate of Remem- 

[xiv] 



PREFACE 

brance" is sufficiently difficult of credence; 
that which follows is even more so. My 
object in writing this preface is to give my 
testimony as to dates, as I have been as- 
sociated with Mr. Bond through personal 
contact and correspondence since Septem- 
ber, 1908, and so far as the matter incorpo- 
rated in this volume is concerned, the dates 
which I am able to fix are conclusive. 

On the 27th July, 191 8, Bond sent me 
transcripts of the two predictions of the 
ending of the war, dated the one March 
14th, the other April 19th. These I received 
on the nth of August. All the remainder 
of the MS. for this volume was posted to 
me on the 6th of December, 191 8, and I re- 
ceived it on December 19th. 

Now the first of the two prophecies of 
the ending of the war was written just be- 
fore the terrible '^ March offensive," at the 
very moment when the Central Powers 
seemed strongest, when Marshal Foch's 
"army of reserve" was popularly held to 
be a myth, and when the fortunes of the 
Allies seemed at the lowest ebb. The sec- 
ond was written in the midst of the Great 
Offensive, when everywhere on the Western 
Front the Allied armies were being beaten 

[xv] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

back. Paris lay under the bombardment of 
monstrous guns of unsuspected force, and 
the hearts of the people (and we know now 
of the military leaders) were in the depth 
of apprehension if not of despair. For the 
Teutons it was the high-water mark of the 
war, and the most sanguine optimist hoped 
for nothing better than a successful defen- 
sive warfare until winter gave some respite, 
with the chance of a victorious offensive in 
April, 19 19. And at that moment of gloom, 
horror and almost despair comes this calm 
assurance that on the 26th day of August 
the war would come to an end with com- 
plete victory for the Allies, although " a 
semblance of war " would continue for some 
time thereafter. What happened? Not 
daring to believe in the possibility of the 
event, yet knowing the exact accuracy of the 
strange writings that had been obtained in 
the case of Glastonbury, and encouraged by 
the miraculous success of Marshal Foch's 
offensive which had then been under way 
for three weeks, I recklessly stated to vari- 
ous people that the war would be over be- 
fore Thanksgiving — and was of course 
roundly jeered at for my pains. On Mon- 
day the 26th of August there was no lack of 

[xvi] 



PREFACE 

confirmatory evidence, and from amongst 
the various reports on this fateful day was 
the following: 

" Enemy Has Simply Disintegrated " 
" Dramatic Era Began with Startling Suddenness " 

London, Aug. 26: ''We have entered the most dra- 
matic era of the war with such startling suddenness 
that it is difficult to realize the full extent of its pos- 
sibilities," says Reuter's correspondent at British Head- 
quarters, in describing the situation Sunday. " It is a 
staggering fact that since yesterday morning the enemy 
has simply disintegrated over a considerable zone." 

Even then the possibility of an ending of 
the war before a spring campaign seemed, 
at the least, remote, and yet — within the 
space of exactly seven weeks, Bulgaria, Tur- 
key and Austria had been beaten in the field 
and forced to capitulate at discretion, the 
Italian armies had come back and won one 
of the decisive victories of the war, Meso- 
potamia and the Holy Land were free, Aus- 
tria had broken up in disintegration and 
anarchy, the American army had won im- 
perishable glory at Chateau-Thierry and 
Saint-Mihiel, had taken Sedan and was at 
the gates of Metz; the French had driven 
almost every German across the frontier, 
the British were back in Mons, the Belgians 

[ xvii ] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

had cleared half of their country, the King 
was in Bruges on his way to Brussels — and 
Germany had surrendered on such terms as 
never before had been dictated to a broken 
foe in the whole career of history. 

It is a fact that the 25th day of August, 
19 1 8, is now generally accepted by military 
commentators as the day when, as a result 
of the hammer blows of Foch, now here, 
now there, without respite and without 
mercy, the Teuton line, shaken at five differ- 
ent points, collapsed all along the front, 
hopelessly and finally. August 25th is ad- 
mittedly the day when the offensive passed 
conclusively into the hands of the Allies. 

Further ; it is also now avowed from Ger- 
man sources that '^ the last week of August" 
was the time when the morale of the Ger- 
man people at home snapped like a wire 
drawn too taut, with no hope of recovery. 

It appears, therefore, that the officers of 
the Allied armies, the military critics, the 
newspaper correspondents and the general 
public were all wrong in their forecast of 
events, overestimating the mark in their pre- 
dictions of the date of the ending of the war 
by about six months, while the one exact 
prophecy came through the automatic writ- 

[ xviii ] 



PREFACE 

ing produced by an architect and his friend, 
a prophecy dated the 19th of April, just 
seven months before the event. What is the 
explanation? Some must be forthcoming, 
for the fact opens up unlimited possibilities. 
The fact itself is incontestable and the dated 
and attested documents are here to prove it. 
If in April, 1918, and at the one moment in 
the four years of war when immediate vic- 
tory, even victory itself, was most doubtful, 
the very day of the enemy's downfall is pre- 
dicted some months hence, how escape the 
conclusion that some conscious power is de- 
termining the affairs of men, willy-nilly, in 
accordance with a preordained destiny; at 
the least in accordance with the determina- 
tion of fate? A wise man whom I know 
once devoutly thanked God that he was not 
so superstitious as to believe in coincidences. 
Only Cimmerian superstition would allege 
a coincidence in this instance as the sufficient 
explanation. 

In the case of the Glastonbury writings a 
plausible solution is possible without in- 
voking " Spiritualism," for Mr. Bond's own 
theory of the operation of the intuition 
through the subconscious mind is tenable; 
so also is the doctrine of the reservoir of 

[xix] 



THE HILL OF, VISION 

cosmic memory, and that of the multiple 
personality, one element in which (not the 
immortal soul, but a thing like the faculty of 
memory) survives that dissolution v^hich is 
death, and remains for a time bound to its 
earthly environment and strives always to 
recover a fictitious life through the poten- 
tiality of the medium. 

In ^^ The Gate of Remembrance " (p. 95) 
is a communication from "Johannes" which 
is significant in that it puts this last thing 
into very clear words : 

" I dydde it not, God wot, not I ! Why cling I to 
that which is not? It is I, and it is not I, butt parte 
of me which dwelleth in the past, and is bound to that 
whych my carnal soul loved and called ' home ' these 
many years. Yet I, Johannes, amm of many partes, 
and ye better parte doeth other things — Laus, Laus 
Deo ! — only that part which remembereth clingeth 
like memory to what it seeth yet." 

In itself this adequately explains how and 
why the past history of the Abbey is spread 
before us now after four hundred years, and 
the secrets of its buried mysteries are given 

up- 

The predictions of the coming of war and 

of the end are in another category. Here 
we are dealing neither with the past nor 

[xx] 



PREFACE 

with the present, but with the future ; in one 
case the prophecy is of what was not to be- 
fall for five years, in the other for seven 
months. Subconscious mind, and the reser- 
voir of memory, and multiple personality all 
fail here, and some other solution is neces- 
sary. What this may be I leave to others 
better fitted than myself to determine. 

Now since the "force" or "conscious- 
ness " or whatever it is that has manifested 
itself through Mr. Bond and his friend 
"J. A.," has established its reputation for 
veracity through the prophecy of war and 
the prediction of its end, the question arises 
as to the credence that should be given to the 
other forecasts made through the same chan- 
nels. Consider the "call to arms" which 
was at the same time the valedictory of " Im- 
perator," and is dated 29th July, 191 1. 
Here is, first, the statement that " the West 
shall fall " and that " the East comes into its 
heritage." Great Britain is to endure, 
though " through a sea of blood and suffer- 
ing shall she attain to her perfection," while 
" a higher Knighthood than her own shall 
spare her in the day of the humiliation of 
nations." Then follows the statement that 
after this great purgation of "suffering and 

[xxi] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

catastrophe" shall come "change and the 
soul's death," while " strange creeds and no 
creeds shall echo in the sacred places." 
After an interval " the leaven of the Faith- 
ful shall v^ork, and because it shall endure 
it shall transform the world." 

Here is a clear prophecy of the inevitable 
downfall of Western civilization after the 
war already foretold. The causes of this 
great debacle are more than hinted at in the 
writings that were obtained in 191 8, as for 
example: 

"Beware! ye ravers. Beware! ye fanatics, ye per- 
verted and unbalanced, dreamers of great things, that, 
raving in the land, are leading and directing the brute! 
— the true Beast of the Apocalypse. Ye not only in- 
volve yourselves but the whole world of your ideals in 
one common ruin, and by misdirected freewill which 
is entirely perverted, set back the clock for generations. 
Now is the appointed time! For now. Self and its in- 
firmities are the pendulum swinging to the darkest night 
of barbarism. Follow the Spirit! Yield to the in- 
fluence of the Divine, which would fain control you, 
and the world advances, by the longest stride it ever 
has taken, to the borders of the Kingdom. Darkness 
and Light! Self and God! Which, in the relief from 
the impending menace, will ye accept?" 

There is here not only diagnosis and 
warning but for the first time an expression 
of doubt as to the immediate future ; at least 

[ -xxii ] 



PREFACE 

the admission of a choice which may be 
made and is not yet determined. In the 
earliest scripts, i.e., 1907-09, there is ap- 
parent certainty of a recovery that is to be 
^'not long delayed." ^^ Chaos, Darkness — 
and a new dawn in crimson skies." ^'Not 
long the conflict. The fury burns fierce and 
fast — and then the calm on a red world." 
In the forepart of 1918 there seems a more 
definite certainty of immediate fulfillment, 
as for example, under date of the 27th of 
March. "We have told you many times 
this is the end of old things and the labour- 
ing world of war, in a new era and a new 
dispensation. The Earth-spirit passes under t- 

the control of a Higher Power, and sud- 
denly, suddenly in the twinkling of an eye, 
it will be with you. It is near at hand. In 
your souls you can feel it, and they who are 
in war and conflict feel it more than even 
you do." 

During this year, however, there seems 
to be an increasing doubt as to the rapidity 
with which the great revolution that is to 
follow the war is to attain its fruition in 
what is constantly referred to as the " New 
Kingdom" or the "Middle Kingdom" be- 
tween Matter and Spirit when " the martyr- 

[ xxiii ] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

dom of matter" has been accomplished and, 
its interpretation by Spirit perfected, Spirit 
shall for the first time be in universal con- 
trol. This would seem like a progressive 
" eclaircissement " of vision on the part of 
whatever force or intelligence it is that is 
the source of the script, but the varying in 
dates (except in the case of the ending of 
the war when the date was exact to a day) is 
explained by the statement in the prophecy 
of 19th April, to the effect that while the in- 
fluence (whatever it is) does ^'control spirit- 
ual forces which manifest themselves in 
Matter," yet it is "often unconscious of 
the spiritless movements of Matter after the 
withdrawal of the spiritual work in Time." 
A further elucidation is given through the 
Bergsonian phrase (14th March, 1918) 
"Time is the ratio of the resistance of 
Matter to the Spirit." 

Now however much the duration of the 
predicted " Chaos and Darkness " of the 
period of revolution and redemption may 
be prolonged by the resistance of Matter to 
the interpenetration of Spirit, as this resis- 
tance is effected by the " ravers and fanatics" 
the "perverted and unbalanced, dreamers 
of great things that, raving in the land, are 

[ xxiv ] 



PREFACE 

leading and directing the brute! — the true 
Beast of the Apocalypse," and who not only 
involve themselves but the whole world ^' in 
one common ruin, and by misdirected free- 
will which is entirely perverted, set back the 
clock for generations" (3rd June, 1918) — 
the coming in of the new '' Spiritual King- 
dom " is as clearly foretold as the nature of 
the inimical and arresting force is indi- 
cated. The choice is given between '^ Dark- 
ness and Light, Self and God. Which, in 
the relief from the impending menace, will 
ye accept?" 

The headlong events in Russia since the 
first Revolution, in Germany since the Ar- 
mistice, and the steady encroachment of 
these dark forces on the spiritual territories 
of the Allies, give startling significance to 
this last script of the 3rd of June, 1918. Itis 
evident that man himself must, and at once, 
make his decision for or against a new era 
of Dark Ages that may soon extend in time 
to a period equal in duration to the last. 
It is the old choice, now offered anew, be- 
tween " Darkness and Light, Self and God. 
Which, in the relief from the impending 

menace, will ye accept?" 

Ralph Adams Cram. 

[xxv] 



INTRODUCTION 

THE Glastonbury Messages, published 
under the title "The Gate of Re- 
membrance," record the story of the 
discovery of the long-lost Chapel of King 
Edgar, by the help of a series of automatic 
writings produced after careful and thor- 
ough study of all available documents and 
data derived from the remains had fur- 
nished the author and his friend the autom- 
atist with the material on which it might 
be supposed that the subconscious powers of 
the mind could work, in order that by the 
automatic process some more perfect in- 
ferences as to the actual facts might be 
caused to emerge. The success of the proc- 
ess surpassed all anticipations, and the 
result certainly indicates a wide field of 
possible utility for this method of laying 
hold of truth stored in the subliminal or 
subconscious mind. 

But the script took a narrative form, and 
the outstanding peculiarity of it is that it 
everywhere claims to have been communi- 
cated by intelligent agents outside the actual 

[I] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

personality of the automatist and his friend 
the present writer. And although the Glas- 
tonbury matters are dealt with in the writ- 
ings as a coherent whole, and present them- 
selves as a body of information complete 
and well-rounded, there appear, almost 
from the first, certain other features quite 
foreign to them. These have been described 
as " intrusions," and are only dealt with in- 
cidentally in the book,^ and necessarily to a 
very limited extent. Behind and beyond 
the mediaeval and monkish ideas and in- 
fluences which are concerned with Glaston- 
bury Abbey, there are in evidence certain 
controlling influences which speak to us 
from out the great profundity of time, and 
which seem to marshal the memories and 
personalities evoked in the script, as the 
stage-manager summons and controls the 
actors of a play in their several parts. 
These more dominant influences are many, 
and first and foremost among them appears 
one of masterful aspect, who speaks to us 
under the name "Imperator." At other 
times the communications are signed *' The 
Watchers." They speak to us of things 
greater than the Abbey, of interests more 

1 " The Gate of Remembrance." 
[2] 



INTRODUCTION 

comprehensive of the general destiny of our 
race. 

In particular, they have, for many years 
past, hinted at the coming of a great world- 
crisis, of war and revolution, leading to the 
dawn of a new era for man, and the promise 
of greater power and greater glory for the 
race, when the materialism which has 
hitherto stunted his spiritual growth and 
thwarted his best efforts shall be cast off, 
and he shall claim lordship over Matter, 
which shall henceforth be his servant, and 
no longer as heretofore his master. A few 
of these writings have been published in an 
English weekly magazine, but the bulk of 
them are now for the first time offered to 
the public through the kind cooperation of 
Dr. Ralph Adams Cram, whose assistance 
has made it possible to publish them in 
America. And the duties of editor will to 
some extent devolve upon him, though in 
the presentation of the material it will be 
necessary that the present writer should add 
certain notes from his own experience, of 
an explanatory nature. 

The substance of the script may be di- 
vided into two main sections : the Pre-War 
Script, and the Later Script. But as, for 

[3] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

the better elucidation of the whole, and 
especially of the part claimed to be played 
by Imperator, the Watchers, and others, 
we must refer to the latter, the order of 
sequence is ordered for convenience' sake. 
In every case, however, the extracts will be 
found to bear their proper date. 

The chief difficulty met with in publica- 
tion has been the correct rendering of faultily 
written passages. Much of the original has 
been difficult to decipher, and occasionally a 
whole sentence has baffled correct transcrip- 
tion. Where this is so, the following system 
has been adopted : ( i ) Italics are used to de- 
note doubtful verbiage, and (2) where the 
meaning is itself obscure, dots are inserted. 
Here and there the present writer has added 
his own gloss under the initials F.B.B. 

On the very first occasion on which this 
series of automatic writings was attempted,^ 
there was observed the same phenomenon 
which other investigators into the sublim- 
inal have noticed, namely, a tendency to 
changes, more or less abrupt, in the manner 
of diction as well as in the matter of the 
script. In some of the later sittings this was 
often so sudden as to constitute a real break 

* See "The Gate of Remembrance," p. 32. 

[4] 



INTRODUCTION 

in the thread of the communication. Be- 
fore any of the monkish messages were 
given this was written : 

" All Knowledge Is eternal, and is available to mental 
sympathy." 

And this was not a mere platitude, but 
the keynote of all that followed — an idea 
afterwards enlarged upon and consistently 
developed until in the later script we have 
something like a completed scheme of philo- 
sophic doctrine concerning the survival of 
the human personality and its real experi- 
ence as acquired in the body, in union with 
a greater and more transcendent conscious- 
ness in which all the individual memories 
and experiences are preserved and co- 
ordinated. 

The change of influence was very marked 
in the fourth sitting. There had been a 
communication under the name Gulielmus 
concerning a maiden who, it was said, had 
spiritual vision, knowing many things ^^in 
her herte but not in her minde." The script 
ran as follows: 

" She is a virgin as of old was Brigit and her bande. 
Let her goe to ye fielde yclept Bee Eyrie, in ye orcharde; 
there dreme, and it shall be vouchsafed to her soul to 
reveal the memory of things now hidden underground 

[5] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

by long tyme: greater than stones or things bullded by 
handes the greater things that perish not, revealed to 
the pure In herte " 

(here the influence begins to change. 
F.B.B.). 

" Ye shall learn of bullded things . . . and in signs 
and symbols, more than that. (Ye) will read the future 
and the returning of new faith. Ye are for the build- 
ing of things that were and are not: bullded by faith 
and deeds and lost through vanity and the evil of the 
pride of the eye " 

(the change is now completed. F.B.B.). 

" Thus shall the light be relighted, and shall shine 
on all the Earth, a Temple set in the midst of a new 
revelation, where the wise shall worship as well as the 
simple, In the old Faith reclothed with acceptance to 
the wider knowledge, and in the habiliments of modern 
Intelligence." Imperator. 

Here we have for the first time the sig- 
nature ^^ Imperator." It was entirely un- 
expected. But F.B.B., who had many years 
before read, and possessed a copy of, Stain- 
ton Moses's "Spirit Teachings" was not 
long in recalling the circumstance that the 
greater number of these are signed with this 
name. J. A., the autornatist, seems how- 
ever to have been absolutely unaware of the 
fact, and had no knowledge of the book. 

[6] 



INTRODUCTION 

We now pass to the ninth sitting, which 
took place on the 30th of December, 1907, 
and is recorded in "The Gate of Remem- 
brance." From this we extract the fol- 
lowing: 

"The Chapel of Our Lady of Glaston: type of 
spiritual things which are not manifest to you. The 
changes need not alarm you. The reconstructions will 
be more perfect. Let the State fall in ruins and the 
outward garments of Faith perish — fear not ! 

"For greater things will rise into being — great 
nations and great ideals — we work for it. Be willing, 
and strive not against the tide. Up on the crest and 
prosper. All will work for the best. . . . The spark 
will live thro' the rains and will relight dead fires, 
fire which is still fire, but with purer flame. We 
cannot hasten the time, but it is sure, and is not 
delayed." 

There had been nothing to lead up to 
this warning. The word "reconstruction" 
as applying to the ecclesiastical or social 
fabric, was far from our minds, which were 
more engaged with the more literal sense of 
the word, in connection with schemes al- 
ready in the air for the future of the Abbey 
ruins. Hence the warning attracted but 
little attention at the time. It was not fol- 
lowed up by other communications to a like 
effect until much later. 

[7] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

But the recurrence of the signature " Im- 
perator" excited our curiosity, and F.B.B. 
thought it well to ask the question, "Will 
Imperator tell us who he is? " The answer 
came as follows : 

" C/5:sAR Augustus Imperator et Pacificator " 

Not knowing the identity of Stainton 
Moses's "control," which has been more 
or less a secret known to a few only, we 
could not feel sure that our "Imperator'' 
was the same. It is now certain that he is 
not. 

In the eleventh sitting, which took place 
in very cold weather, in the winter of 1907- 
1908, a little writing was obtained, very 
cramped and irregular. It followed on 
some conversation on the subject of the 
mental affinities of the British and Romans. 
We deciphered this : 

" Sanguis Romanorum in Britannia manet et re- 

(e) 

surgat 

and: 

" In insula Brittanica, Roma manet et resurgat." 

Here followed some attempt to give 
advice to the sitters about their own affairs, 
but the cold seemed to make the effort hope- 

[8] 



INTRODUCTION 

less and the sentence broke down with — 
"obliviscor . . . heu mihi! — pro tempore 
Augustus non possit!" The thread was 
then taken up by Johannes, who said : 

" Imperator would say — ' Seek the goal and ensue 
it.' " 

F.B.B. had given expression to some ques- 
tion which was in his mind as to the real 
meaning of these alleged racial rebirths, 
and there came the following: 

" The facts live, and the emotions and events. The 
puppets die and are not. The leaf is reproduced: the 
ear grows: but the old time is dead. You understand 
not reincarnation, nor can we explain. What in you 
reincarnates, do you think ? How can you find words ? 
Blind gropers after immutable facts, which are not of 
your sphere or experience." 

The Script of 1909 

During the year 1908, and on through 
1909, down to the month, of October, the 
Glastonbury message unfolded itself. The 
script of 1908 was chiefly concerned with 
the Edgar Chapel, and the features of the 
building were successively brought to light 
after their description in the writings, and 
proved these veridical. First, the rectan- 
gular chapel as built by Abbot Beere of 

[9] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

which it had been said, ''We laid down 
seventy-and-two, but they builded longer." 
And the extreme measure proved to be 
within a few inches of this length, though 
no hint of any such length, nor even of any 
division of length in this chapel, had been 
extant in document or tradition. Subse- 
quently were found the remains of the 
polygonal apse, whose outline, following 
the indication of the script, was published 
before discovery. 

During 1909 much more matter was re- 
ceived, whose accuracy, as in the case of 
the Loretto Chapel, still awaits verification, 
which will be attempted when funds and 
labour are forthcoming at the right season 
of the year. Throughout this time we have 
no actual mention of Imperator's presence, 
although we are occasionally sensible of a 
controlling influence which may be his. 

During October, 1909, J. A. (Mr. John 
Alleyne) was located at Teddington, and 
on the evening of the 15th of that month, 
a further experiment was made, and the 
result was strange and utterly beyond antic- 
ipation. In a few terse sentences, in lan- 
guage powerful and full of fine imagery, 
there came a prediction, quite unmistakable, 

[10] 



INTRODUCTION 

of a world-war, a cataclysm which should 
drench the earth in blood, with a hint im- 
plied of some sort of social revolution to 
follow or to accompany it. Afterwards is 
to come an era of splendour which is spoken 
of as " the great feast of the Christus," and 
the communication is signed "Augustus 
Caesar Imperator" (see full transcript fol- 
lowing, p. 15). 

The Script of 191 i 

During 19 10, several writings were ob- 
tained, all of which seem to have had 
reference to Glastonbury, but we do not 
detect the influence of Imperator again 
until April, 191 1, when he intervenes 
brusquely to correct the sitters' misappre- 
hension about Ralph FitzHamon (see ''The 
Gate of Remembrance," p. 108). 

Again on the 7th July, we obtain the fine 
utterance which commences with a call to 
Britain, summoning her to enter upon a 
new heritage of greatness which is to be 
hers after the " fall of the West." Her Em- 
pire shall endure, for she will not fail in 
spirit. And with her, and her company of 
nations, will be united in loyalty and chival- 
rous friendship those ancient races of the 

[II] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

East who have learned her love of justice 
and freedom. 

It would seem indeed that she would 
have need of that friendship, and that the 
day may come when, exhausted with suffer- 
ing and sacrifice, she will be at the mercy 
of the still unexploited manhood of the 
East, now awakening to its world-heritage. 
What further vials are to be poured out 
upon unhappy Europe? What will bring 
about the final humiliation of her peoples? 
Whatever it be, we are promised that a 
higher knighthood than her own shall in- 
tervene to spare our race. Can we not 
already discern a promise of that high chiv- 
alry in the flower of Oriental culture now 
mingling with us? 

The latter part of this script is indeed 
the logical sequence of the first, for with 
a greatly increased influence and prestige 
in mundane affairs of Eastern modes of 
thought would certainly arrive newer and 
fuller interpretations of religion and a 
further slackening of the hold which the 
mere intellectualisms of the cruder and 
often less spiritual mind of the West has 
managed until now in a measure to retain. 
(See transcript, p. i8.) 

[12] 



introduction 

The Script of 1912 

Just three years after the appearance of 
the war script of 1909, comes a further cor- 
roboration of the warning then conveyed. 
The mysterious ^' Poppies " therein alluded 
to, are again spoken of — poppies of blood! 
It was on the 26th of October, 191 2, that 
this second war script was given. The 
Balkan war was raging at the time, and no 
doubt many people were watching the situ- 
ation with anxiety, and fearing that the 
conflagration might spread. And we can 
read in the script a sense of shortly impend- 
ing doom for the whole of Europe. "POV- 
ERTY, HUNGER, AND THE WAR-LUST IN 
EVERY LAND ON WHICH LIES THE SHADOW 
OF THE CROSS." It is a fact of Strange sig- 
nificance that the territories invaded in the 
Great War have been Christian territories, 
and the massacred and enslaved peoples, 
Christian peoples. Asiatic Turkey, that is, 
Turkey proper, has been inviolate, and save 
for internecine warfare between Turk and 
Arab, which has been a matter of old 
standing, the non-Christian world has been 
spared the ordeals of invasion. 

The transcript of these earlier writings is 

[13] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

appended to these notes. There are alto- 
gether four different scripts. The first three 
were published in the London weekly Light 
for May i8, 191 8; the fourth, dated 27th 
June, 19 1 2, has recently been recovered 
from a mass of miscellaneous writings 
mostly concerning Glastonbury Abbey. It 
concerns the rise of a false democracy and 
its attempted usurpation of power by gross 
and violent methods. The most recent 
scripts — those obtained in 191 8 — contain 
allusions to the same subject, and readers 
may compare the earlier with the later 
warnings given. On first reading, in 1909, 
the script which speaks of "The Poppies," 
one's thoughts naturally turned to a war of 
nations. Yet the following words point 
surely to a social upheaval : 

" Strike not and ye will be stricken not ; and they of 
a true heart among the people will give you shelter. 
Among them ye have no foes." 

There seems in these writings no definite 
distinction between the national and the so- 
cial cataclysm. The two are interwoven. 
They may be dual aspects of One Great 
Event. 



[14] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR AND 
OF THE ENDING OF WAR 

Here begin the War Prophecies; suddenly 
and without warning or preface. The 
writing was obtained at Teddington 
where ''/. A, " was then staying. R. A. C. 

October 15, 1909. 

" Fortuna fuit. Coelum ruit. Labor fruit in 
aeternum." 

Q. What is impending? 

A. "War — horrid war. Mars is King. 
Brother's blood. Before the great feast of the 
Christus, the Nazarene, it cometh. The weak 
must suffer. The strong must die. Those who 
are neither will suffer and live. Chaos — dark- 
ness — and a new dawn in crimson skies. 

** Bow to the storm. Leave the strong to break it 
and be broken. Be like the holy men of old, in the 
sanctuary of your inner selves. Strike not, and ye will 
be stricken not, and they of a true heart among the 
people will give you shelter. Among them ye have no 
foes. But there must be suffering of the body. Fear 
not. The shrine of your inner self is consecrated 
ground, and none will enter there. 

" Learn the great secret. Let others strive for the 
shadows. To the earth the earth; and to the stars 
the soul of the free. 

[15] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

" Not long the conflict. The fury burns fierce and 
fast. And then the calm on a red world. 

"The masters watch: the puppets play, and think 
that they are gods. Let them dance! They are gone 
like the shadows of the night. 

"Red world! Red Poppies of forgetfulness in the 
graveyard of the past and gone — for — ever — 

" They dance but to a music of madness, which is 
not of their piping. They swell and sweep the earth, 
and say, ' Behold ! We have changed the face of the 
Universe, and there is no God ! ' And the Silent Ones 
look down and cease their piping, and the song of the 
morning arises. 

" Red Poppies in the graveyard. And then Red Pop- 
pies in the smiling cornfields in the sun. Read, learn, 
and fear not. All is well, and all has been ordained. 

" Out of the ocean of the Infinite the ripples come. 
Deaf ears hear not their murmur. Blind eyes see not 
their shimmer, nor the rainbow on their crests. The 
blind lead not the blind, but they who see. Ye have 
your answer. 

" Hearing, they will not hear: and seeing, they will 
not believe, and who can change the course of Destiny? 
The force moves on. Who can change or check its 
coming? Only watch and wait! 

" Play with the toys of Man's handiwork — it is 
well. He makes his instruments out of humble things. 
Your great Abbey of yesterday — a child's puppet — 
nothing more; but a great Impulse from the Eternal 
created it, and the echo of that Inspiration is on you 
now. Yesterday, the work in stone: eternal and ever- 
lasting, the emotions it typifies go on. 

[i6] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

" Even as the ant in the grass, so is your work in 
the eyes of the watchers. But through the ages of 
your soul's development, the seed shall grow, and as 
architect of the soul in the Life of the Infinite, ye 
shall know the value of that which is now of little 
worth. Strive for a prize of high calling. Do some- 
thing well, and aspire to reconstruct that Perfection 
which Avalon humbly typifies, and ye have an exceed- 
ing great reward. Understand. 

"Augustus C^sar Imperator." 

"Britain. Arise! July 29, 191 r. 

"That which has been, shall be. New things 
appear, but the Old in new guise shall return. 
Ye have been great. Ye shall be great in other 
garments, as Rome hath been : and in new realms, 
new possessions, new joys — strange, but still 
the same. 

" What change comes? Say, is your Britain of 
today the Britain of olden time — of one short 
hundred years ago? 

"When the West shall fall, Britain shall en- 
dure. The East comes into its heritage in the 
days to come ; and as well try to stop the sun, as 
the march of progress. But when that Day 
comes, Britain shall remain the Friend and Com- 
rade of the Eastern nations, as she has ever been. 

" Once the Friend — changed not — just and 
faithful to her trust: then the Friend and Ally 
of the nations of the East. 

"Forget not: so have comfort. She shall en- 
dure, but Perfection comes through suffering 
and catastrophe. Through a sea of blood and 

[17] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

suffering shall she attain to her perfection: the 
elder sister and the model of their constitution. 
But fear not! A higher Knighthood than her 
own shall spare her in the day of the humiliation 
of nations, and with a new growth shall she 
flourish in her gates. 

" But then cometh change, and the soul's death. 
The Old Gods shall be for a time eclipsed, and 
strange creeds and no creeds shall echo in the 
sacred places for a time; but thereafter a time, 
and then the leaven of the Faithful shall work, 
and because it shall endure it shall transform the 
world. The great Truth shalL manifest itself — 
the Word as it was spoken. For men shall strive 
each for his own truth, and shall strip the gar- 
ments off the gods, and behold! their nakedness 
shall show the face of the One Eternal Truth 
whose shadow all religions be ; and men shall say, 
* Quarrel not ! Behold ! Your Gods are mine, 
only we did not understand ! ' 

" But the truth of the East and of the West is 
the same and thereby shall all men marvel. 

" I have spoken. 

" Imperator. Fa?e." 

*' Demos" Script 

27th January, 191 2. 

Note. The first part of this script refers entirely to 
technical details of Glastonbury Abbey, and is there- 
fore not printed here. The question was then asked 
" What lies in store for Glastonbury? " 

A. Trans oceana spes est. {Across the ocean 
is hope.) 

[18] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

Immediately afterwards the following was written: 

" Ruat coelum ! Self and Luxury. Demos rises and 
would sweep away all there is of good and charity. 
Fear not his swelling gorge. He blindly snatches at the 
fruit and will clutch the empty air. 

" Those in high places will turn in just wrath and 
rend him. He aimeth too high and will fall swollen 
with pride and with the success begotten of the apathy 
and kindness of those who should rule with firmness. 
He thinketh he hath but to stretch forth his hand and % 

the fruit will fall. Not so is the Law of God and 
Man subverted : and even as the great ones of the earth 
have found their mistake, so will this god of clay fall 
to pieces in his effort for the god of Self. So we have 
said. 

" The elements of his ruin are in himself; and after 
a time and times, he will turn and rend himself, and 
the earth shall be as it was before he rose to sprinkle 
the blood of the just and innocent upon her breast. 

"Imper:" 

October 26, 1912. 

"That which we spoke of, know we. The 
'Poppies' Cometh to pass before the Day of 
Christ. Note what we have said. Poverty and 
Hunger and the War-lust in every land on which 
lieth the shadow of the Cross. They who would 
be at peace with their neighbours shall not be 
able, for Peace reigns no more. War with their 
neighbours is better than war at home, and so 
the cause must be made for quarrels. So, when 
Europe is exhausted, the reign of Asia will begin, 
for there the Sun is rising. So say we." 

[19] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

The Later Script 

The close of the year 19 16, found the 
writer domiciled in Bristol, with his friend, 
J. A. a near neighbour, and by December 
it had been mutually agreed that, in view 
of the greatly revived interest in the sub- 
ject of spiritual phenomena, the experi- 
ments in writing should be resumed. Mean- 
while F.B.B. had formed the intention of 
publishing, as soon as might be possible, the 
story of the finding of the Edgar Chapel. 
A sitting on December 4th, 19 16, led, unex- 
pectedly, to the production of additional 
matter concerning the as yet undiscovered 
" Loretto " Chapel, and the upshot was that 
he decided to incorporate in his book " The 
Gate of Remembrance," all the matter deal- 
ing with this, since the story was now com- 
plete, and only needed the spade for veri- 
fication. This was done, and the volume 
appeared early in the year 191 8, which 
brings us to a new chapter of events. 

The War Script of 191 8 

It was not long after the publication of 
"The Gate of Remembrance," that Sir 
William Barrett, F. R. S., who is so well 

[20] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

known in connection with the work of the 
Society for Psychical Research, approached 
the writer with a suggestion that he should 
continue his experiments in automatic writ- 
ing — to which he readily agreed, and as 
J. A. also concurred, the sittings were re- 
sumed early in March. The subject was 
left open, and the matter was approached 
with a mind quite impartial as to what 
might be the result. The first three or four 
attempts were entire failures. All that was 
obtained was a few lines of minute writing, 
very irregular, cramped, and almost en- 
tirely illegible. At last perseverance was 
rewarded in a small measure, and a script 
was obtained on the loth of March, and 
a second on the nth, which proved to be 
of a philosophic nature. Again on the 13th, 
writing was produced in which it was 
possible to make out the sense in parts. 
It turned out to be a prediction of the future 
course of the war (see p. 49). The gist of 
it was — if we correctly interpret the very 
difficult writing — that the end of the eighth 
month of 19 18 would find the enemy weak- 
ened by lack of resources, and that his re- 
sistance would collapse on the twenty-fourth 
day of August. The expression used is 

[21] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

"surcease of battles" — a term very incor- 
rect as the event proved, though it was at 
this date that the English forces operating 
in the neighbourhood of Bapaume, made 
their first unmistakable sweep forward, 
overriding the enemy's resistance and to a 
great extent confirming the feeling of as- 
cendancy which Foch's earlier achievement 
had inspired. 

The remainder of the script seemed to 
have reference to a pestilence of sorts that 
was to follow the harvest, and it would seem 
that this prediction has been in a measure 
justified. It also referred to a segregation 
of the new race, or chosen peoples, but this 
part has not yet been satisfactorily made 
out, and the script seems hopelessly bad to 
decipher.^ 

Further trials were made, still with little 
success, and feeling that something was in- 
hibiting the free action of the subconscious 
faculty in the automatist, the writer was led 
to try the experiment of detaching the work- 
ing of the conscious from the subconscious 
by a new method. This was as follows. 

The next sitting which. took place on the 

* Further study has cleared up many obscure points and the 
sense is now clear. See transcript, pp. 50, 51. R. A. C. 

[22] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

2ist of March may be regarded as the first 
of the new series. Instead of mere conversa- 
tion, to distract the mind from the mechan- 
ical action of the hand, F.B.B. took a book 
and read continuously from it during the 
whole course of the sitting. The book 
chosen on this occasion was Dr. S. Honaga^s 
"National Spirit of Japan.'' 

The result was immediately successful. 
There was at once a marked improvement in 
the continuity and freedom of the writing, 
which flowed evenly and extended to four 
pages of neatly written matter, the lines being 
well maintained. The subject of this com- 
munication is the reproduction of hered- 
itary memories in human symbolism as 
expressed in language and in architecture. 
There was a pause at the end of the second 
page, and before anything material had been 
deciphered, F.B.B. asked the question, "Can 
you give us anything on the subject of ^ The 
Gate of Remembrance ' ? " The writing was 
immediately resumed, but on examination 
afterwards it was found that the subject of 
the question had been dismissed in a single 
curt sentence and that of the former subject 
of the script had been continued. 

The success of the new method, and its 

[23] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

clear advantage in dissociating J. A.'s nor- 
mal consciousness from what his hand was 
engaged upon, was so unmistakable, that the 
same plan was followed out systematically 
all through the course of the sittings in this 
series. F.B.B. was careful to see that his 
friend's attention was fully given to the 
reading, and he would frequently punctuate 
it by comments and questions, necessitating 
a reasoned rejoinder on the part of J. A. 
It was also his practice at the conclusion of 
a sitting to discuss with his friend the sub- 
ject-matter of the reading, so that he might 
feel sure that his attention had been con- 
tinuously fixed upon it. The result was 
sufficient to confirm the conviction that it 
had been genuinely given. 

Now there are many cases known in 
which persons of intellectual ability have 
been able to give simultaneous attention to 
three or four distinct subjects, and the 
faculty is most commonly seen in the case 
of men of business who are able to dictate to 
their shorthand clerks, sentence by sentence, 
in rotation, perhaps as many as four letters 
on different subjects, and yet retain the 
several threads of thought clear and dis- 
tinct. But the parallel, though seemingly 

[24] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

a close one, is not so in reality, and this for 
two reasons. In the first place, your busi- 
ness man is in reality performing a feat of 
agility which is a purely intellectual one. 
His attention is given, however, not simul- 
taneously, but consecutively, to his three or 
four subjects, and all that he is really doing 
is to jump with a wonderful degree of quick- 
ness and precision, from one to the other. 
And these subjects are more or less of kin- 
dred nature, which makes the transition 
easier. The same may be said of the chess 
expert, who will play as many as twenty- 
four games of chess blindfold, and simul- 
taneously in the sense that the moves alter- 
nate in rapid rotation. 

But here we are face to face with a dif- 
ferent problem. The reading is continuous. 
The writing is also continuous. There is no 
pause, not for a moment, which can allow 
mental breathing space for the alternation 
of the current of thought. And the script, 
when it comes to be read, is on a subject so 
widely removed in quality, in nature, in its 
psychological atmosphere, from that of the 
reading, that it may be said to have nothing 
whatever in common with the latter. And 
more than this. Under such circumstances, 

[25] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

the mechanical action of the brain would, 
one would think, result almost inevitably 
in the occasional picking-up of a word or 
phrase here and there from the reading by 
the common phenomenon of ^' metaphasia," 
and the reappearance of such isolated words 
or phrases in the script But such a thing 
has never yet been observed. Neither is 
there any similarity visible at any time be- 
tween the literary style of what is read to 
the medium, and the style of the script. 
The script indeed has its own style, and it 
is a peculiar one, very different from that 
which is habitual to the medium. But the 
unique interest of the script is this : that it 
shews all throughout a consistent purpose, 
a sustained argument, a memory of what 
has been already given, and an avoidance 
of repetitions. It shews independence of 
view, common sense, and critical judgment. 
Therefore in assessing the value of these 
writings under the conditions stated, full 
weight must be given to the features above 
noted, and the possible presence of an in- 
telligence other than that of the medium or 
of the writer must be considered. 



[26] 



the prophecies of war 

Script of March 27 

On the 27th of March, in the presence of a 
witness, M. W., a script was obtained of 
which the foUowingis a resume. F.B.B. read 
continuously from Duhamel's " New Book 
of Martyrs." The difficulties in communi- 
cation were described, and the wretched 
quality of the writing accounted for by the 
psychic disturbances consequent on the tur- 
moil of war on the physical plane. In this 
turmoil of emotion the passional nature of 
the newly slain is described as an active 
element, and the Earth-spirit is involved. 
In this script the ultimate triumph of the 
cause of intrinsic right is asserted, also the 
waning of the enemy's last great effort as 
seen in the slackening of his advance, this 
being the prelude to complete disaster. 
And the mutterings of coming trouble on 
the Eastern front of Germany's empire are 
foreshadowed. Reference to a chronicle 
of the campaign in the spring will shew the 
reader that at this time (Wednesday be- 
fore Easter) the situation was one which 
all the Allied nations were viewing with 
the utmost apprehension, and it is now no 
longer a secret that the British Prime Min- 

[27] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

ister had prepared against the formidable 
eventuality of a break-through to the coast 
by the enemy, which would separate the Al- 
lied forces, and necessitate the withdrawal 
of the British from the fields of northern 
France. 

Script of March 29 

On Good Friday, March 29th, things 
were at their worst, and the public mind 
was full of anxiety, but the script received 
this day was full of sustained hopeful- 
ness, and contained again the assurance of 
victory. 

The dissolution of the central combina- 
tion was predicted in the near future. 
" Watch ! " it reads, '^ on Easter Day the tide 
will turn and ebb swiftly and consistently." 
Late on Saturday came to hand Sir Doug- 
las Haig's cheering report that the enemy's 
attacks had been repulsed at all points, the 
full news of his enormous losses being pub- 
lished on Easter Monday, April ist. And 
on this day the London evening papers 
came out with the headlines ''THE TIDE 
HAS TURNED." 

The script of March 29 also said that 
^' the very elements would fight on the side 

[28] 



THE PROPHECIE-S OF WAR 

of right." Now the weather up to this point 
had been distinctly and consistently unfa- 
vourable. But in a correspondent's letter 
to the Daily Chronicle, dated April 2, we 
find the following: 

" Our soldiers are saying, what probably a good 
many Germans are thinking, that ever since the bom- 
bastic Kaiser declared that this was his battle, things 
have ceased to go well with the enemy. The progress 
of the opening days of the offensive, which drew forth 
this bragging claim, has been arrested, and on balance 
the fighting since then has gone distinctly in our favour. 
The luck of the weather has turned for about the first 
time that I can call to mind, and gone completely 
against the enemy." 

Script of March 30 

On the Saturday before Easter, and before 
the better news had been received, a script 
was obtained which again referred to the 
war. F.B.B. read from Crake's ^^ Last Abbot 
of Glastonbury." It was pointed out that 
although all material signs were so far un- 
favourable to the Allies, yet this was only 
a superficial aspect of a different, and much 
more hopeful, state of things, but the forces 
making for a bold effect would not be 
apparent till the morrow. The enemy was 
in reality shattering his forces against a 

[29] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

barrier produced by the indomitable energy 
of the Allies, their unbroken communica- 
tions, and above all, by the moral strength 
of an honest cause. 

This script passes to the gradual awak- 
ening of Germany to the truth so long 
hidden from her people under a screen of 
falsehood and intriguing diplomacy, now 
wearing thin. The following remarkable 
words are used : 

" The awakening of the soul of this great misguided 
nation will be the termination of its warlike force, and 
a fresh force presents itself which will destroy war 
utterly and overthrow it." 

And it adds: "Tomorrow the first great 
sign of failure will be manifest and what 
follows we have told you already." The 
League of Nations is foreshadowed in this 
script, and the imminence of Germany's 
debacle is predicted thus: 

" The swing of the pendulum will shew Germany ere 
long not only on the side of the Allies but in the fore- 
front of a new menace which will ere long arise. She 
who has so sinned will thus work out her own sal- 
vation." 

And now we have Germany appealing 
to the Allies to support her against the 
threatening spectre of Bolshevism! It is 

[30] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

Strange to look back at this Easter script 
and see these words. The script ends with 
a passage on the dangers of ignorance and 
the forces of Ignorance in a world ruled by 
intellect. The exclusiveness of intellect 
and its failure in sympathy towards the 
masses are given as the cause of the down- 
fall of past civilizations. But in the script 
following this (March 31), we are prom- 
ised that this will not be so again, as knowl- 
edge is now sufficiently diffused to offer a 
foundation broad enough and firm enough 
for a permanent social fabric, established 
by the union of all classes in the bond of 
brotherly love which is the basis of Chris- 
tianity, which is after all (to quote the 
script) but the inspired philosophy of 
earlier ages interpenetrated by humanity 
made manifest. ( The Word made Flesh, — 
F.B.B.) 

Script of March 31 

{Easter Day) 
In this communication more is said on the 
nature of intellect and the need for enlight- 
ened reason to control the forces of the 
emotional and intuitive nature of Man. A 
warning is uttered against that abuse of in- 

[31] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

tellectual control which has involved the 
soul of the German nation in schemes of 
material ambition using the weapons of 
force and violence to attain its ends. This 
influence must pass, and yield to a readjust- 
ment in which the moral and spiritual fac- 
tors will reassert their dominance over the 
material side of man's thought and will. 
It ends with these words: 

"Today the balance changes, and soon it will be 
manifest to all the world. Let Humanity hold hands 
and never break the chain. So shall the influence of 
the greatest pervade the whole in the time appointed." 

Script of April i 
The script obtained on this day (Easter 
Monday) is purely on philosophic lines, and 
is therefore not included in this series. It 
has to do with the genesis and the evolution 
of the twin powers of the human soul — 
Intuition and Intellect, shewing their re- 
actions and the manner in which they will 
ultimately achieve a perfect union, bring- 
ing the golden age of our race. The meet- 
ing of the two powers is compared to the 
building of the two arcs of a bridge, whose 
Keystone is the Divine Logos, Reason. 

[32] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

Script of April 17^ 

We are told again not to be misled by ap- 
pearances, the storm and stress of the ma- 
terial happenings being only as it were the 
dark background of a picture illuminated 
by a manifestation of spiritual influences 
making for the victory of Right and Truth. 
The new offensive, we are told, was a des- 
perate necessity for Germany, in order to 
avoid a state of paralysis; and with our- 
selves, the further sacrifice is not in vain. 
It is like the pruning of a young tree, and 
the grafting in of new branches — represent- 
ing a new spirit — at the very root. The 
issue will be a great regeneration, and no 
sudden change of spirit is predicted. Yet 
in Austria first, and afterwards in Ger- 
many, a change of mind is growing more 
manifest. 

Script of April 18 

The significance of the most terrible and 
cataclysmic of human happenings is but 

* This script was obtained after an intermission of sixteen 
days, at 12 noon, at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. [F.B.B.'s 
address.] Conversation had been entirely on the subject of the 
book, "The Gate of Remembrance," with one brief reference to 
the war news which was serious. During the writing F.B.B. read 
aloud continuously from Edgar Wallace's novel, "The Council of 
Justice." 

[33] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

small as compared with the birth of spirit- 
ual principles. Even the submergence of 
a civilization is a thing that, in the ulti- 
mate reckoning, weighs but little in view 
of the fact that the Eternal Purpose, though 
thwarted and set back by Man's unreadiness 
to exercise his Freewill in a spiritual direc- 
tion, will finally vindicate itself and estab- 
lish the destined Kingdom. On the first 
reading of this script, the views expressed 
seemed to exhibit a ruthlessness for which 
the sitters were unprepared, and F.B.B. 
voiced this feeling in a question, or rather, 
a request for further explanation. The 
answer was given in these words : 

" May will prove the statement that we have made 
and repeated to you. The advance of the material 
force outlines the adopted plan, and carries the foe 
down the fair lands that lie to the west of him. The 
breaking wave of realization and truth sweeps eastward. 
Therefore have we told you the heart of the foe grows 
faint with fear and the consciousness of evil done. All 
the glory and all that he fights for sinks to dross in view 
of the discovery that he is deceived and betrayed. The 
bitterness against his rulers rises while yet his forces 
sweep desperately against all opposition in growing 
ferocity; and the very blows that he deals against the 
opposition of the Allies are but levelled against the 
heart and life of his betrayers. Such conditions cannot 
persist, but must break and end in quick decline and 

[34] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

reaction, even as a dying brute has greater fury with 
his last flicker of strength, although he knows his end 
has come. 

"These things we say. This we know, and {the 
truths) are apparent to us in our places. Those, there- 
fore, who prune the tree weep not for the dropping 
leaves and withering branches. Only ye are the tree, 
healthy and regenerate. So rejoice, and do not sorrow 
ever." 

Script of April 19 
We are told in this script that our human 
judgments of right and wrong are very 
faulty. For example, there is much to be 
said for the older ideals of conquest, and 
there is a spiritual purpose underlying war 
which has hitherto made that terrible in- 
strument necessary to the Divine scheme 
of evolution in Man. And though we have 
been promised the success of the Allied 
cause, yet this coming success will be " rather 
in the necessities of development in the 
scheme of Creation, than in any intrinsic 
superiority of one ideal over the other." 
This we found very difficult to understand. 
One might almost say that it was repugnant. 
But what is spoken of is ^' Ideals " and not 
"Methods" and there lies our human diffi- 
culty, for it is not easy for us to dissociate 
these things, and to maintain a clear view of 

[35] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

principles apart from the admixture of ma- 
terial motives with which all human activ- 
ities are of necessity amalgamated. It is 
conceivable that we should not have been 
disposed to think evil of the German ideal 
of World-Order, and a perfectly organized 
body-politic under one paternal govern- 
ment, had she always employed humane 
methods and disdained all material and 
personal gain and caste aggrandisement in 
her pursuit of this ideal. 

We on our side, we are told, have had 
the moral support of the conviction that we 
have battled for Right, for Liberty, and for 
the support of the weaker nations. But 
these, and a hundred other intense convic- 
tions do but screen a great underlying need 
for commercial freedom, and in accepting 
the gage of battle, our personal and na- 
tional activities have been a powerful 
stimulus. Yet the really decisive factor 
has been the superiority of spiritual over 
brutal methods, and this is made plain in 
the later part of this script. The argument 
is elucidated in the following words : 

" Ye chose the spiritual — they the brutal. In this 
way do ye differ. Thus there is a reason in the uni- 
versal scheme for the victory over Matter and the 

[36] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

principles of Matter. The survival of the fittest; the 
best basis of government: these engage on the side of 
the foe, and under ordinary conditions and in the de- 
velopment of Man's best benefit, they should have won. 
But as ye know, and we have told you, the Era of 
Spirit comes quickly, and the old conditions are ending. 
Therefore ye will win, and thus the old era ends. The 
intention of War, the interpenetration of the material 
force of the victors by the spirit and soul of the van- 
quished, is no longer necessary nor desirable. 

" For the first time in the history of Mankind the 
rules have been removed and reversed, because now for 
the first time in the evolution of the Earth, Spirit is 
not only triumphantly dominant over Matter, but this 
domination has at last been necessary for the betterment 
of Mankind." 

DiscuRSus ON Prophecy 

In the course of this script occurs a re- 
markable passage dealing with the date 
already given for the Ending of the War. 
It occurs in response to a remark interjected 
by F.B.B. to the following effect: 

^^What we feel we want at present (be- 
lieving that it may be helpful to many) is 
something tangible connected with human 
affairs that will shew unmistakably the 
presence of a Guiding Power." The an- 
swer is as follows : 

"We have given you the spiritual ending of 
the war as on August the twenty-sixth (szc), and 

[37] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

the material manifestation may, and should, coin- 
cide. We have this difficulty, that though we 
control spiritual forces which manifest them- 
selves in Matter, yet we are often unconscious 
of the spiritless movements of Matter after the 
withdrawal of the spiritual work in Time. As 
the oceans may continue to heave and swell long 
after the tempest which moved them has passed 
away; and even as conflicts between individuals 
may persist long after anger and opposition have 
passed from their souls, so an outward semblance 
of war may continue sporadically and inter- 
mittently long after the opposing nations have 
ceased to desire it." 

Assuming a spiritual force as the stimu- 
lating cause of all human motions one is 
bound, we think, to admit the reasonable- 
ness of this parallel: and hence the uncer- 
tainty of any predictions of date. Even 
among the exponents of Biblical prophecy, 
the fulfillment of events has even been sub- 
ject to this same uncertainty, and where 
students of prophecy have attempted to fix 
definite dates they have in all cases, so far 
as we are aware, found themselves con- 
stantly at fault, for they have too often pro- 
ceeded upon an assumption, which we see 
nothing to warrant, that the precise dates 
are preordained and predetermined. It is 
by this means they would seek to vindicate 

[38] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

the exact foreknowledge of the Creator. 
But, on the other hand, would they not one 
and all demand scope for the active prin- 
ciple of Human Freewill? And if Free- 
will or Self-determination be really a domi- 
nant factor in the making of Man's history, 
it is difficult to see why the course of the 
greatest of human events should not be sub- 
ject to the same limitation in regard to the 
exact period of their accomplishment, as 
the innumerable minor ones. To assert the 
fixity of these greater ones in point of date 
would seem to involve the denial of Free- 
will in Man, a proposition no thinking man 
can tolerate. 

So in lesser affairs. Impulse, Intuition, 
Will, guide and control, but human intellect 
is the executive agent, and human intellect 
is involved in human circumstances and con- 
ditions which make for conflict of decision. 
The captain lays down a course and a time- 
table for his ship; but although the desti- 
nation of the vessel is preordained, the mo- 
ment of his arrival in port will depend upon 
the intelligent will of his officers and crew. 

Again, as regards the overruling power 
of God, Providence, the Almighty Will that 
presides over human destinies, shall we be 

[39] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Content with the older conception of a 
purely Transcendent Power, moving us like 
pawns on a chessboard, or shall we not 
rather think of the Word, the Logos, incar- 
nate in Man, untiringly wooing and winning 
his heart and mind ever in harmony with the 
transcendent Will and Purpose, but never 
at the expense of his freedom of choice? 

Script of May 
During the month of May, a number of 
writings were received, but without direct 
bearing upon the war, except in a philo- 
sophic sense. A good deal was said on the 
subject of what was termed "the martyr- 
dom of Matter" implying that the general 
break-up of material conditions as well as 
the sacrifice of life, was in reality liberating 
powerful spiritual forces hitherto pent in 
Matter. And the result of this process 
would be the hastening of the New Era in 
which spiritual conditions would assert 
once for all their dominance over Man's 
development. Another very interesting 
consideration emerges from the script. 
This is the westward trend of human life 
and civilization. The original impulse 
towards westward migration is deeply hid- 

[40] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

den in the soul of Man, who is generally 
unaware of its spiritual nature. Thus only 
the material motives of trade and conquest, 
or national expansion which is a motive for 
conquest are obvious to him, but the higher 
developments follow, as we see in the case 
of the spread of religions westward, as the 
script says. On the other hand there is 
always a reaction of a purely spiritual na- 
ture in an eastward direction and we get 
a very curious application of this law in a 
later script, received on June ist. 

Script of June i 

The instrument of the spiritual activities 
in impelling the movements of the races of 
Man always westward, is the magnetism of 
the Sun, which is described as winding, as 
it were, a coil of invisible wire round and 
round the globe in this direction, and thus 
causing a perpetual flow of psychical or, 
perhaps it would be more correct to say, 
aetheric, energies towards the west. But 
however mechanical the process, it has a 
psychical side and even a spiritual one. 

The liberation of spiritual forces through 
the break-up of material conditions in the 
Near East has been so overwhelming that 

[41] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

the races of the East of Europe are now in 
a state of unparalleled complexity. Each 
race is controlled in its individual and col- 
lective aspect by the Soul of that race. 
This is in each case a really subsisting En- 
tity, but an Entity in an intermediate stage 
of development just like the several indi- 
viduals of the race. Now in Germany we 
have an instance of a vast and tremen- 
dously powerful race-group, with a highly 
organized race-consciousness; one might 
almost say, an intellectualized race-con- 
sciousness, but this controlling soul of the 
race has, in the case of Germany, been de- 
bauched by an apostate use of Intellect, and 
thus exists today as a race-spirit drugged 
into spiritual coma, and yet growing potent 
in the material sphere by reason of its great 
cohesion of parts. All its members are so 
much a part of the greater unmanifest 
Entity that they are all impregnated with a 
spirit of blind obedience to the state, and 
with a swelling consciousness of their Im- 
perial destiny; therefore the westward trend 
in the material sense has manifested itself 
with immense strength. They beat at their 
western frontiers and would batter down 
all opposition and overrun the west if they 

[42] 



THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 

could, but all the while a strange thing is 
happening on their eastern bounds. Their 
spiritual yearnings and ideals, however de- 
graded, however apostate, are finding ex- 
pression in an eastward direction and in this 
respect Germany is a house divided against 
itself. 

In time the material defeat in the west 
will weaken the material or brute force of 
the national will to such an extent that the 
striving of the spirit in the eastward direc- 
tion will purify it as in a furnace, amalga- 
mating with, and counterbalancing with it- 
self, all the fallow and uncontrolled spirit- 
uality of the eastern races, the final outcome 
being a new racial balance and readjust- 
ment. "Mittel Europa" is thus a type of 
what the script in many places describes as 
"The Middle Kingdom" of Matter and 
Spirit in perfect union, which is to be the 
Kingdom of God upon Earth, the "New 
Heavens and New Earth." 

Script of June 3 

(F.B.B. reading from Boz's " Memoirs of Grimaldi ") 

In this communication the state of the 
various nations of Europe before the war 
is analysed and their faults described. 

[43] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Belgium, it is said, had special need of pur- 
gation, and there is a hint of very deep- 
seated spiritual disease in her body-politic. 
In France and Italy the religious con- 
sciousness had gone astray, the Reality 
being submerged in the Symbol, so far as 
the orthodox faith was concerned. They 
perfected the symbol, whilst forgetting the 
great cause of the symbol. England is 
censured for her crass materialism and 
love of pleasure, but on the spiritual side 
she is absolved from the apostasy of some 
other nations. Nevertheless her ^^ sins of 
the body" must be purged if she is to hold 
her spiritual freedom and lead others to 
light and liberty. America, without racial 
stimulus, is commended in that she has 
freely, and through a wonderful unanimity 
of individual conscience, and individual 
judgment, chosen the better part. Of her 
it is said that through the strength thus 
given, she will persevere to the end, and her 
counsels shall prevail. Russia is a melan- 
choly contrast. Her racial intuitions, so 
spiritual in their nature, are held in bond- 
age to the rule of perverted Intellect and 
thus she lies between the upper and the 
nether millstones. 

[44] 



the prophecies of war 

Script of June 5 

This very fine script is chiefly on philo- 
sophic lines, and it contains a warning and 
an appeal to the rulers of the Allied nations 
today which we give here in extenso. The 
argument is that all spiritual truth comes 
through Intuition and not through Intellect, 
though it is only by purified Intellect that 
spiritual truth can be successfully applied. 

" Given a nation of Intuitive men we can control It 
as we can control prophet, poet, dreamer, and him who 
IS using hl3 intellect yet consciously links it to his in- 
tuitional soul. Take heed, we say, and in all earnest- 
ness must we press the matter upon you. Take heed 
lest in the thirst for knowledge and for the control of 
the material ye educate your rising generations in the 
plane of the material only. Truly a nation thus edu- 
cated may be as a battering-ram in the world of Matter 
and ye have ample evidence before you now. But such 
nations, even as through all the ages — even to that 
cradle of Humanity which lies beneath the waves of 
the Atlantic — such a nation, containing within itself 
the seeds of its own destruction must suffer death of 
Body and Spirit. 

" Educate in the will of Matter starving the Intuition 
and you break the rope which lifts Humanity to higher 
spheres and connects material Man with Spirit. This 
danger presses. We have watched the galvanizing of 
the sleeping Spirit under the influence of crucified 
nature in the conduct of the war, but this is passing 

[45] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

and temporal and unless those among you who are in 
authority cultivate equally the Spiritual, both in home 
and school, and in the university of daily life the fate 
of Humanity vv^ill be again infinitely delayed and cast 
back into the limbo of barbarism v^hich is Matter 
deprived of soul. 

" Greece developed a soul, a Pagan soul which yet 
was soul, though only the soul of her race-spirit mani- 
fest in beauty. But this was not enough. It was a 
strand in the divine seven, but only one, though lovely 
in its earthly manifestation. But the seven strands 
must be equally developed lest catastrophe attend you. 

" Again at this moment we appeal to you as a nation 
to cultivate the Spiritual lest inevitably ye fall from 
grace although blazing like a meteor in the world of 
time and then drawn out like a meteor pass on to the 
darkness of the limbo of past glories." 



[46] 



TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THE 
WRITINGS 



Script of 13 th March, 


1918 




c cc 2yth 


cc 




c cc 29th 


cc 




c cc ^otl^ 


cc 




c cc ^jst " 


cc 




' " 1 7th April 


cc 




' " 1 8th " 


cc 




' " 19th " 


cc 




* " 1st June 


cc 




c cc ^j.^ cc 


cc 




' " lOth July 


cc 




c cc J 2th " 


cc 




' " 2ist August 


cc 



PAGE 

49 

51 

54 

57 
61 

65 
68 

69 

74 

79 
89 

92 

112 



[47] 



THE SCRIPT 

Script No. i, March 13, 191 8 

This script was produced during the morning of the 
13th of March, at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. Mr. 
Alleyne was the automatist. Nothing had been sug- 
gested as a subject for communication, and neither of 
the sitters had had anything in mind on the subject of 
the war. F.B.B. had not yet adopted the method of 
reading aloud to the automatist. During the sit- 
ting therefore, there was desultory conversation. The 
script is difficult, and in many places illegible. In the 
transcript, doubtful passages are italicized. 

"When the eighth month of the year ends, 
failure will be more evident in those that 
ye pursue. The twenty-fourth day will see 
surcease of battle. The clear oqtline of 
these verities will shadow forth the reality, 
and ye shall grasp them. Proof is not 
needed, but ye shall have your proof for 
others' sake. . . . 

The rest is quite illegible. Writing was resumed 
in the evening of the same day, with the following 
result. The first part has reference to the segrega- 
tion of a chosen people from the ends of the Earth, 

[49] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

but only fragments can be read, and some words are 
conjectural. 

" ... of the Israelites, one common stock, 
and others including the yellow races of the 
East. . . . 

^' . . . The chosen race is not confined 
to Israel, but must include all branches of 
the original stock, as yet unregenerate yet 

- are? 

the Sons of God m mystery, who know not 
wholly of their stock, and must be purified, 
but not yet. Nevertheless, a portion will 
remain . . . 

Here only a few words are legible, and seem to imply 
that Asiatic Christians are referred to. . . . 

"The sub-races are involved, east and 
west. They are of the same stock and are 
on the side of right. ... 

"... When the harvests are ready, the 
reapers will reap in peace. Then the plague 
spreads west and south. They shall be few 
indeed, but they who live beyond the waters 
will be spared. The people shall be sifted 
in the winnowing of the pestilence, which 
shall seize the goats and spare the sheep. 
We have said it. Watch and pray and fear 
not: ye are the immune. 

Then in a different hand, very large : — 

[50] 



THE SCRIPT 

"ONE THOUSAND, NINE HUN- 
DRED AND EIGHTEEN, IN AU- 
TUMN, I HAVE GIVEN YOU THE 
TIME AND YEAR. 

"The race of the appointed ones is se- 
cure: not ye only, but all they of the race 
of . . . count ye members of the race. 
All are of the same stock, chosen and ap- 
pointed. From the seas none others save 
they who are of the Race but stand aloof 
for fear. Three are marked for the penalty, 
and one of these must be purified in the 
fire. Two war with the body, and one with 
the spirit. This one must be cleansed." ^ 

Script No. 2, March 27, 19 18 

Obtained at 22 Cotham Grove, Bristol. No sug- 
gestion as to the subject of the proposed communication. 
F.B.B. read during the sitting from Duhamel's " New 
Book of Martyrs" (Verdun episode). A few words 
at the commencement of the script are illegible owing 
to the condition of the fountain-pen, which blotted. 

"... The conditions of external influ- 
ences are such as make any impression al- 
most impossible. Physical vibrations alone 
would be sufficient to overpower the deli- 
cate vibration on the other plane, and when 

1 See "Notes," p. 128. 
[51] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

in addition the spiritual world is invaded 
by questions of the most intense and con- 
centrated nature, it becomes a pure impos- 
sibility to do anything. The spirits of the 
slain, earth-bound and still most deeply in- 
terested in the conditions of the battlefield, 
cause a loss of balance in the proportions 
of the relative influences v^hich interrupt 
every normal condition for many hundreds 
of miles beyond the zone of warfare. One 
influence which has been observed amongst 
others is that which was once known as 
Demeter, but it is past for the time being. 
" Conflict is the cause of our failure. The 
balance rises and will soon shew a full pre- 
ponderance on the side of intrinsic right. 
The last great effort passes away. There 
will be fluctuations, but we see clearly what 
the seething world sees dimly, — the issue 
to victory of the Good over Evil. This is 
inevitable and is a law of nature and of 
God. Have no fear! It will pass, and 
quickly. The climax that approaches, based 
on natural laws, will witness the end of 
the great offensive. Already hope works in 
the breasts of the leaders, and awaiting 
Nature hangs breathless at the progress of 
its realization. 

[52] 



THE SCRIPT 

" Slower, slower, grows the advance. 
The hunter is entrapped in his own toils, 
and after the brief glory comes the tragedy 
of a disordered retirement. So great will 
be the disaster that the very defenders will 
stand arrested by the terror. The danger 
grows, and in their heart the foe knows 
that the breaking point is growing very 
near. They sense the upheaval of an out- 
raged people in the east, and already the 
first low rumble of the rising wrath is dis- 
tinctly audible. 

"Afterwards the barrier that separates 
us from you grows thin, and somewhere it 
will break and open a new vision of life. 
Out of evil comes good, and out of the mire 
of Matter in which the Earth is now buried 
will grow the lilies of the Spirit, beautiful 
and sweet and comforting. We have told 
you many times, this is the end of old 
things and the labouring world of War, in 
a new era and a new dispensation. The 
Earth-spirit passes under the control of a 
higher Power, and suddenly, suddenly, in 
the twinkling of an eye, it will be with you. 
It is near at hand. In your souls ye can feel 
it, and they who roll in mire and conflict 
feel it more even than you." 

[53] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Script No. 3, March 29, 1918 

{Good Friday) 

Obtained at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. No ques- 
tions asked or suggestions made. F.B.B. reading from 
Bain's " Digit of the Moon." 

^'The material success of the offensive 
wanes. All will be as I have already told 
you. Plans of despair lose their intelli- 
gence. The hearts of the leaders are al- 
ready failing them for fear of the conse- 
quence of their disaster. The pact is near 
its end in Europe. 

" Complications must arise in the balance 
of power, which is in itself an ordinance 
of value incontrovertible. 

"The East must of necessity extend the 
sphere of influence under firm European 
control because it is ordained in the nature 
of things. 

"Where opportunity fails and evil and 
decay take place, there will be change of 
control : but where good predominates, there 
will the present order not only persist but 
be strengthened. 

" For the Goth is ever turbulent and his 
control is unsuited to the Eastern races. But 
India needs the control of her races and 

[54] 



THE SCRIPT 

will not turn from the influence which is 
beneficial in that it has not betrayed its 
trust. 

" Everywhere, all through the ages, the 
forces of Good prevail and work out their 
destiny even though the outer and material 
economy may appear as failure. Look in- 
wardly and learn from history. Never has 
ultimate good failed of its purpose, even 
though destruction of the material manifes- 
tation may have been necessary to its con- 
summation. Therefore take heart and fear 
not. The balance again must be estab- 
lished, well established; the one the reflex 
of the other. 

" It is as it were a Kingdom within a 
kingdom, and even as the bud must burst 
for its full development and thrust out fresh 
shoots that its kernel may carry out its 
destiny, so Matter must be all fractured and 
destroyed for the progress of the spiritual 
force contained in it. . . . 

"Watch! At Easter Day the tide will 
turn and ebb swiftly and consistently. The 
very elements will fight on the side of Right, 
and be used in the accomplishment of the 
intended trap into which they have fallen. 
The soul of the nations to be fully purified 

[55] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

had to suffer to the uttermost, but not to the 
completion of destruction, to perish. Never 
so was it ordained in the history of nations. 
Never yet has this world seen the forces of 
Good annihilated, for always a choice resi- 
duum is left, even though perchance im- 
planted in the material souls of the foes of 
Good. 

^^ So will it be now, for the nations who 
have fought on the side of Right have not 
been found wanting. The pruning has been 
great and the sickle has reaped, but the 
garnering is great and good. The spiritual 
harvest being reaped, enough is left of the 
good, and for the harvest-fields of the 
world. 

"Think you there is no good in the 
Teuton? There is much good, and by 
pruning it will be preserved for future 
generations. He has his work in spheres 
prearranged and preconceived, and his im- 
petus to German perfection, if penetrated 
by the good he has opposed, will make for 
a great future. He has worshipped strength, 
and he was wise till he perverted it to lust 
of power. He has despised the other na- 
tions, because he deemed their greater 
gentleness was weakness. Now, he knows 

[56] 



THE SCRIPT 

and appreciates the fact that strength is not 
brutality, and that the human philosophy 
of holy men was not weaker or more de- 
cadent than his own. 

^'Already they realize and understand it 
well : and ye will realize that there is some- 
what in them that was necessary to the sal- 
vation of the world. Spirit and Matter 
must blend and interpenetrate and balance; 
whence the necessity for the combination of 
the Old with the New Testament is thus 
dimly portrayed. The one without the 
other is but perfect in its own sphere. 

^^ So all comes under the Law which no 
mortal can understand: the necessity of 
Matter for the perfecting of the Spirit. 
More we could say, but what need of more? 
All will be well in the general balance of 
the future." 

Script No. 4, March 30, 19 18 

{Saturday Before Easter) 

Obtained at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. No previ- 
ous question or suggestion as to subject. Reading was 
continuous during the sitting, from Crake's " Last 
Abbot of Glastonbury." 

"... The crisis dominating the present 
situation on the battle-front is one which, to 

[57] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

the material sense, is quite unfavourable. 
Various forces combine to produce a bold ef- 
fect which, however, will begin to be more 
apparent to Europe tomorrow morning. 

^^The indomitable energy of the Allies, 
the strong plan on which they fight, the 
perfection of their manoeuvres, and their 
unbroken communications, all combine to 
produce a barrier against which the enemy 
will shatter the forces of his army in vain. 
Nevertheless the good influences aforesaid 
are as nothing in the balance as compared 
with the consciousness of integrity and 
honesty of purpose which supports their 
souls. 

'^ Day by day the Teuton nation awakes 
yet more keenly to the truth so long hidden 
from them, and the great and hitherto im- 
penetrable screen of falsehood and intrigu- 
ing diplomacy grows correspondingly at- 
tenuated and impotent. It is this impartial 
force which decides the day, and once the 
enemy realizes that he has lost the offensive, 
his soul will turn instinctively to that work 
which his untiring individuality must al- 
ways procure him. For the past forty years 
the whole nation has been blind, — cut off 
from that strict sense of truth which is part 

[58] 



THE SCRIPT 

of the soul of Humanity. It is always 
dangerous to be insular and even nations 
which, by their innate sense of honour and 
virtue might be deemed immune, have 
suffered in the past from this cause — 
notably England, which, like all insular 
nations, has its dangers. 

" The awakening of the soul of this great 
misguided German nation will be the ter- 
mination of its warlike force, and a fresh 
force presents itself which will destroy war 
utterly and overthrow it. 

" This rehabilitation and regeneration of 
the nation itself and the recovery of its 
place among the nations, will regain for it 
esteem and mutual trust. 

"Tomorrow, as we have said, the first 
great sign of failure will be manifest, and 
what follows, we have told you already. 

"Nature, and natural forces, drive hu- 
manity against the will of its diplomatists 
into a covenant for mutual preservation and 
protection whilst the swing of the pendulum 
will shew Germany ere long not only on the 
side of Humanity but in the very forefront 
of a new menace which will ere long accrue. 
She who has so sinned will thus work out 
her own salvation. 

[59] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

"Fear not Democracy, if properly led 
and instructed. Ignorance is the great 
danger of a world ruled by Intellect, as 
the senses are the foe of Intuition. Of old, 
the war on earth was between these latter 
forces but now it is lifted to the higher 
plane, and so the former are the battling 
forces in the development of the human 
race. 

" It will pass: but, till it passes, the many 
will demand knowledge of the few. There 
will be frequent backslidings. The prin- 
ciples, the intuitions, are in another sphere 
where the influence of Good predominates, 
but for the time being Intellect has betrayed 
the Intuitions. . . . The failures of past 
civilizations lay in the fact that the jealousy 
of the possession of knowledge drove men 
to keep it in secret cults and in the bodies 
of societies, . . . and set apart by their 
intellectual superiority they forgot the 
brotherhood of Man. And at length the 
utter ignorance of the multitude, unchecked 
by any nobleness of instruction, rose like 
a flame and swept the brilliant groups 
away. 

"Of what use was the knowledge of 
these groups to the masses grovelling be- 

[60] 



THE SCRIPT 

neath the Temple walls? . . . Pride of 
possession of jewels of knowledge which 
the mob never possessed brought its own 
reward. 

" It is not so now. Deception passes 
away, and all knowledge is open to them 
that have the power to seek it. And as the 
soul of Man ever aspires to those priceless 
gifts of which even the most ignorant are 
conscious, there is no sense of injustice now 
causing jealousy, and the danger which sur- 
rounded the acquisition of knowledge now 
threatens no longer. Therefore gain Knowl- 
edge : turn not from the Light. . . . 

" The Light of the Word is the consum- 
mation of all things human : the martyrdom 
of Matter and the corresponding growth 
of the physical manifestation of the Spirit. 
We have no more to tell you now, but 
ponder and be thankful." 

Script No. 5, March 31, 19 18 

{Easter Day) 

Obtained at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. Time: 12 
to I p. M. No subject suggested, but before sitting 
down, F.B.B. remarked on the difficulty of reading the 
script recently given, and expressed a hope that any- 
thing not understood might be repeated. The reading 

[61] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

during this sitting was from Crake's " Last Abbot of 
Glastonbury." 

" We have been anxious to point out to you 
the danger of supporting an intellectual 
and sublime philosophy upon a foundation 
of ignorance and passion, and the necessity 
for a close cooperation of all strata through 
the element of brotherly love which is 
the basis of Christianity, which is after 
all but the inspired philosophy of earlier 
ages penetrated by Humanity made mani- 
fest. 

" The whole system of the past was neces- 
sary at the time of its inception ; but in the 
very nature of its constitution doomed to 
failure on the physical or communal plane. 
By its very nature the only philosophy and 
the only creed which can persist is that 
which is developing to the highest degree 
on the intellectual side, and which yet per- 
vades and guides the weaker members and 
controls their thoughts and actions through 
the unconscious acceptance hy the instinc- 
tive mind of the superiority of Intellect over 
Intuition. 

" Intellect is the result of the penetration 
of Matter by the Spirit, whose only expres- 
sion lies in Intuition. Intuition made mani- 

[62] 



THE SCRIPT 

fest is the Word clothed with the flesh, the 
Christ regent in Man. Intellect is by its 
nature lacking in sympathy with Humanity, 
and Humanity revolts. Yet Intellect as a 
reigning force interpenetrates the whole 
future of Humanity, being conscious as a 
vague force through all the body of Hu- 
manity, and the spirit strives for it. Igno- 
rance and Intuition need guidance, with 
constant control, and the controlling force 
in the past has lacked the physical power 
to control on the physical plane. The line 
of demarcation has been so sharply defined 
that the tree has had no root in the soil of 
Matter. But let the tree be deeply rooted 
in the soil, and the storms of matter and 
emotion will beat upon it in vain. 

^^ ^ Have root lest you wither away.' This 
would we explain to you. Germany has 
exhibited a species of deformity: Intellect 
leading and controlling, but involved in- 
dissolubly with a form of Matter, — Force 
and Violence. And in this deadly union 
she has dominated the world for evil. But 
for the future of the world, this influence 
and association will swiftly pass. 

" But some of them remember that the 
golden age will represent the proportional 

[63] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

blending of Intellect and Matter^ — condi- 
tions whose birth must of necessity be at- 
tended by storm and stress in both spheres 
of influence. 

'' Mutual yieldings and revolts : the pangs 
of birth : or rather, the actions and reactions 
of readjustment. The present war is simply 
an exhibition of this adjustment, — an evil 
growth to be pruned and controlled; a sign, 
but not a necessity, of quickened functions 
and developments. But the ultimate end 
is inevitable and certain, and the birth will 
prevent an abnormal and cancerous growth 
in the body-politic. Humanity. Each mem- 
ber of this Body will in time perform the 
functions for which it was ordained. But 
blind obedience was not so ordained for- 
ever. The hands must know the inten- 
tions of the head, and be trained to per- 
form their functions before the work can 
proceed without interruption. But the 
training period is difficult and fraught 
with trouble and loss. So would we ex- 
plain to you. 

"Today the balance changes, and soon it 
will be manifest to all the world. Let Hu- 
manity hold hands and never break the 

1 Intuition. 

[64] 



THE SCRIPT 

chain. So shall the influence of the greatest 
pervade the whole in the time appointed. 

^^ So, when the time is ripe, Life will be 
prolonged indefinitely, and Matter, in com- 
plete union with the Spirit, will likewise 
be eternal: but not now, for Matter is not 
purified." 

(The remarkable fulfillment of the Easter prediction is else- 
where commented upon. The date is attested by Sir William 
Barrett, F. R. S., and Lady Barrett. — F.B.B.) 

Script No. 6, April 17, 19 18 

At Sydenham Hill, I2 noon. Conversation had 
been on literary subjects, with a brief reference to the 
morning's war news, which was serious. F.B.B. read 
during the sitting from Edgar Wallace's novel, " The 
Council of Justice." 

^^ Consider not the outer semblances, but 
in the storm and tumult of Matter ye can 
see instead a consciousness of the true spirit- 
ual influences of which these signs are but 
one manifestation, causing often what we 
call an antithesis, the blackness upon which 
spiritual forces are manifested. 

"Thus, when we told you the change 
would take place on the Sunday called 
Easter, we saw only the fact that then, for 
the first time, the Spirit of Right and Truth 
and Justice would become . . . imaged in 

[65] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

the souls of the Central Powers perceiv- 
ing that they had followed blindly and in 
the dark the commands of their rulers. . . . 
"Their souls are awaking to the madness 
and cost of their crime. Like sheep to the 
slaughter, they go forward, driven by the 
whips and scourges of their leaders; bent 
on the suicide if chance fails them, for all 
is then lost, and only death remains. But 
Spirit will defeat Matter and the victory 
on the one plane grows more complete even 
as the triumph of physical force becomes 
more accentuated. Also comes now the 
reaction of the Spirit-power eastward, while 
the full surge to the west and with it the 
march to defeat continues. The end is al- 
ready discernible, but though Matter is 
striving for conquest over Spirit, at the 
eleventh hour the effort of Spirit will be- 
come manifest. The contest becomes even 
more perilous : and the Watchers wait in the 
tower. There will be much to do ere the 
Spirit can triumph, and on the side of right 
and justice there is yet much clearing to 
be performed. Were peace to be com- 
passed, a condition of Peace would tran- 
scend the use of war. All is the birth-throes 
of a Race, and they must not be shirked, nor 

[66] 



THE SCRIPT 

hidden by false methods. Had there been 
no offensive, the war would never end 
except in stasis and exhaustion. Movement 
was necessary to an issue contrary to the 
offenders. With you, as the power of Mat- 
ter fails, so will the Spirit strengthen. It is 
not the decay of Destiny, but the pruning 
for better fruition of the young tree. Have 
no fear of the result. The soil is formed, 
and enriched by the blood of the slain. The 
spiritual forces combine in the running sap, 
which will presently produce the blossoms 
and the good fruit of the tree, and on the 
spathe, cut down to the very roots in Matter, 
will a new spirit be grafted in. Therefore, 
look beyond to the ultimate issues ; they are 
to perfection inevitable. What matter the 
suffering of the body personal or national. 
Of the signs of regeneration one by one 
has become manifest; and — what you can 
never realize — the New Spirit formed in 
the nations that need regeneration. Who 
can see Conversion, or grasp its utter mar- 
vel, but by its works? By these a spirit 
is manifest, and there can be no sudden 
change. But in Germany, and more prom- 
inently in Austria the change of mind is 
growing more manifest." 

[67] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

The final passages of this script cannot be deciphered. 
The writing Is very difficult throughout. E. G. P. 
witnesses the date of the writing. — F.B.B. 

Script No. 7, April 18, 191 8 

There were two sittings at Sydenham Hill, one at 
12 noon, and the second an hour after the conclusion 
of the first. Only the second script is given, as the first 
had no reference to the war. This one was prefaced 
by a comment on the part of F.B.B. who said, — *' We 
have missed a good deal of what has been told us con- 
cerning the war, and we shall be glad if we can have 
the same repeated." F.B.B. reading from Dorothy 
Sayers' " Poems. Op. i." 

" May will prove the statement that we 
have made and often repeated to you. The 
advance of the material forces outlines the 
adopted plan, and carries the foe down the 
fair lands that lie to the west of him. The 
breaking wave of realization and truth 
sweeps eastward. Therefore have we told 
you the heart of the foe grows faint with 
fear and the consciousness of evil done. All 
the glory, and all that he fights for sinks 
to dross in view of the discovery that he 
is deceived and betrayed. The bitterness 
against his rulers rises while yet his forces 
sweep desperately against all opposition in 
growing ferocity, and the very blows he 

[68] 



THE SCRIPT 

deals against the opposition of the Allies 
are in truth but levelled at the heart and 
life of his betrayers. Such conditions can- 
not persist, but must break and end in quick 
decline and reaction, even as a dying brute 
has greater fury with his last flicker of 
strength, although he knows his end has 
come. 

"These things we say. This we know, 

intentions? 

and the tendencies that accompany physical 
actions are apparent to us in our places. 
Those, therefore, who prune the tree weep 
not for the dropping leaves and withering 
branches. Only you are the tree, healthy 
and regenerate; so rejoice, and do not 
sorrow ever.'' 

Script No. 8, April 19, 191 8 

At Sydenham Hill (morning), F.B.B. reading aloud 
throughout the sitting, from Dr. Honaga's " National 
Spirit of Japan." The first part of this script has to 
do with abstract principles only, and is not given here. 

"We have given you the spiritual ending 
of the war as on August the twenty-sixth, 
and the material manifestation may, and 
should, coincide. We have this difficulty, 
that though we control ... in the purely 
spiritual forces which manifest themselves 

[69] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

in Matter, yet we are often unconscious of 
the spiritless movements of Matter after the 
withdrawal of the spiritual work in Time. 

" As the ocean may continue to heave and 
swell long after the tempest which moved it 
has passed away; and even as conflicts be- 
tween individuals may persist long after 
anger and opposition have passed from their 
souls : so an outward semblance of war may 
continue sporadically and intermittently 
long after the opposing nations have ceased 
to desire it. 

Here follows a short passage which has not been 
satisfactorily deciphered. . . . 

But even now the combatants have yielded 
to the spirit of peace and benevolence to 
such an extent that it may be questioned 
whether any number of the opposing 
forces — other than their leaders, who have 
all to win or lose by a decision — are not 
anxious to the uttermost to cease the 
warfare; and the nations sincerely regret, 
and only desire peace, and only they who 
are responsible still continue in active op- 
position to save their own skins. Who 
can search the hearts of the Heads of 
Nations? — for we tell you but the truth 
when we say that he whom ye call the 

[70] 



THE SCRIPT 

Kaiser is, and has for long been, suffering a 
martyrdom of soul-agony compared with 
which death would be relief. So it is with 
all who have battled on the side of error. 
On the side of the Allies this is less evident, 
for as a nation you possessed and are sup- 
ported by an original consciousness of 
Right, which still supports you in spite of 
doubts innumerable. 

" You have comforted yourselves with the 
conviction that you have battled for Right, 
Liberty, and the weaker nations. A hun- 
dred intense and meritorious convictions 
support you and comfort you, and hide the 
great underlying necessity for commercial 
and personal and national activities which 
were equally puissant in the throwing down 
of the gage of battle. The preponderance 
of conscious right is on your side, and added 
to this, you have waged a war in accordance 
with principles in themselves spiritual 
rather than material and brutal, and thus 
your spirits are exalted above those of your 
foe. 

"Yet in both nations, the elements or 
principles which move to war were often 
identical, and mostly incompatible, that is, 
from the relative standpoints of the two 

[71] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

nations. The real reason why the scales 
have fallen in your favour is intrinsically 
this one thing: the basing of your methods 
on the material and brutal or on the 
spiritual. 

" Ye chose the spiritual : they the brutal. 
In this way do ye differ. Thus there is a 
reason in the universal scheme, for the vic- 
tory over Matter and the principles of 
Matter. 

^^The survival of the fittest — the best 
basis of government — these engage on the 
side of the foe; and under ordinary condi- 
tions and in the development of Man's best 
benefit, they should have won. But as ye 
know, and as we have told ye, the Era of 
Spirit comes quickly, and the old conditions 
are ending. Therefore ye will win, and 
thus the old era ends. The intention of war, 
the interpenetration of the material force of 
the victors by the spirit and soul of the 
vanquished, is no longer necessary nor de- 
sirable. For the first time in the history of 
mankind, the rules have been removed and 
reversed, because now for the first time in 
the evolution of the Earth, Spirit is not only 
triumphantly dominant over Matter, but 
this domination has at last been necessary 

[72] 



THE SCRIPT 

for the betterment of Mankind. This do we 
think we have now made clear to you, and 
you will understand in view of what we 
have formerly explained to you. To sum 
up, we will explain once more. The enemy 
fought upon principles which, in former 
times, would have inevitably brought him 
victory in that his principles were for the 
betterment physically and materially of the 
Race. And so it has ever been until today. 
And ever, when the world has sunk from 
a false civilization into the darkness of bar- 
barism and ruin, then from this condition, 
the blossoms of the garden are scattered and 
diffuse their scent through all. 

^' Thus, for the first time, these no longer 
must fall and though after the war there 
will be much pain and suffering, and much 
pruning and grafting needed, instead of the 
destruction of Civilization for the better- 
ment ultimately of the race, Civilization is 
adjudged unworthy of this penalty and is 
allowed still to exist, faulty, defective, but 
capable of being pruned and converted to 
higher perfections. 

" Thus in place of the horrors of conquest 
will ensue the pains of reconstruction. This 
have we tried to explain to you." 

[73] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Script No. 9, June i, 1918^ 

Obtained at Sydenham Hill, Bristol, 12:25 p.m. 
F.B.B. asked for further information as to other forms 
of life in the Universe, to supplement a brief remark 
appearing in a recent script. The present communica- 
tion however does not refer to this, and is largely de- 
voted to a philosophic study of the soul of Germany. 
This portion is given below. During the sitting F.B.B. 
read aloud continuously from Boz's " Life of Joseph 
Grimaldi." 

The script commences with a description of certain 
mobile and vital forces aifecting Matter, one of which 
is the effect of the solar magnetism in inducing a west- 
ward trend, in animate Nature, impelling tribes and 
nations westwards in conquest, adventure, and migra- 
tion. This is a physical effect, but there is a corre- 
sponding spiritual reaction in an eastward direction, in 
opposition to the trend of Matter. Here the argument 
is applied as follows : — 

"While Matter in its pilgrimage is im- 
pelled westward, Spirit, Intuition look 
eastward for the source of their redemption 
in as far as Spirit is clothed in, and in- 
fluenced by, Matter in which it is involved. 
At the present juncture, at the present crisis 
in the world's history, the races of the earth 
are in a condition of unparalleled complex- 
ity in that the liberation of new forces is 
world-wide and not local, both physically, 

' See "Notes" at end of volume, p. 125. 

[74] 



THE SCRIPT 

and still more, spiritually. And it is neces- 
sary to be without the body and influenced 
only by the spiritual conditions in which 
we are meshed, to give anything like a true 
impression, or to master the conditions of 
their internal revolutions. 

'^ In the first place, you have a vast Race- 
Group or Race-Spirit, drugged with de- 
ceptions into spiritual coma, and existing 
only as a vast physical manifestation: a 
nation existing simply as a vast, divided^ 
and materialized race spirit-group, tre- 
mendously potent in the material plane by 
reason of the cohesion of its parts: a na- 
tion plunged in one direction under the 
influence of a swelling manifestation of 
what you may call ^ Destiny' as apart from 
solar control, although nevertheless acting 
in conjunction with, and in complete har- 
mony with, the Solar Magnetism. To this 
is superadded a control of great intellectual 
forces which have drawn down both spirit- 
ual and intuitional influences to their own 
material level, and harnessed them to its 
apostate intention to control a world not 
only of Matter but also of Spirit. Here is 
a complete and perfectly equipped Macro- 
cosm — a Power of God on earth, seduced 

[75] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

and aspostate and a blemish on the growing 
glory of the manifestation of God: a body- 
perfect and energetic in health as regards 
the work it undertakes, which constitutes 
PERFECT MATTER, but imperfect in that it 
has cut itself off with the sword of Intellect 
from the Spirit of God which should be 
all-controlling. 

"There you have the greatest influence 
of the grossly material as liberated against 
the whole spiritual Body of God in His 
Manifested Self upon the earth. Follow 
the law of solar influence. It tends bodily 
westward. The material force, the purely 
animal, tends to batter with irresistible 
force against its western boundaries. But 
the spirit chained, involved in that west- 
ward flow of Matter, and yielding partly to 
its influence, yet even in its apostate situation 
turns towards the East, and as a reaction, 
beats with invisible wings longing to spread 
towards Asia and the East. 

" In this one detail, {Germany) is a house 
divided against itself : and only in this one 
detail. Were it to combine absolutely, no 
western balance could control it. But it is 
[divided in aim^), 

1 Conjectural. — F.B.B. 
[76] 



THE SCRIPT 

"And as in the body of Man, the local 
failure of Matter can be controlled, and 
eventually removed by the influence of the 
spirit, the will producing ultimate recovery: 
so, in course of time, the split betv^een spirit 
and body in the constitution of these nations 
v^ill at the same time defeat its material 
end and right itself. 

'' But as the defeat of Matter in the West 
will ultimately weaken the material or brute 
force of these nations, so the strivings of 
Spirit in the Eastward trend will purify as 
through a furnace, amalgamating with, and 
counterbalancing with, itself all the fallow 
and uncontrolled spirituality of the Eastern 
races; whence returning victor over the 
westward materialism of their body, to 
an ultimate combination or recombination 
from within, their weakened will chastened. 
Thus several of the nations will balance and 
readjust into a grouping favourable to the 
ultimate perfecting of the whole race of 
Man throughout the world. 

" So far we have indicated the trend of 
events in the Middle Kingdom of the world 
of gross Matter; the escape of the apostate 
spirit; the regeneration of that spirit; the 
return, and the ultimate perfecting of the 

[77] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Middle Kingdom, not for the expression of 
Matter only^ but for the elevation of that 
forceful combination/ through the cruci- 
fixion of adversity, to the higher state of 
the Middle Kingdom of the Spirit. 

"Thus let us, looking from afar, turn our 
attention to the position of the other nations 
of the v^orld. Remember that the ultimate 
End to be arrived at through the wondrous 
influence of Spirit is the perfection of Man, 
first to a perfected Kingdom in Matter, and 
after that to a perfected Kingdom in that 
intermediate sphere v^hich is Heaven upon 
Earth, for which end He who tends and 
watches guards you from stagnation, from 
Spirit confused and enmeshed in influences 
of Intellect — plus — Matter, influences that 
though not expressing themselves in the 
plane of Nature, and sometimes temporal 
in that they were contributing (though usu- 
ally in a covert and harmful degree) to 
the solution of the Conquest of Matter by 
Spirit, nevertheless produced a condition of 
stagnation and balance which refused to 
modify the balance of the scales to any ap- 
preciable extent: a condition which called 
for similar treatment to that accorded to the 

^ I.e., Germany. 

[78] 



THE SCRIPT 

human body in a similar condition. That 
which ye call a caustic irritant was applied. 
Now, when the inflammation is departed, 
the progress may be recommenced, and even 
as the pain of the knife or the blister arouses 
the Spiritual through the medium of pain 
in Man, so the anguish of a suffering world 
is reawakening the dormant spirit to greater 
upward effort to resume control of Matter, 
and to a progress rapid in the ratio of its 
material suffering — which is as naught in 
the scale of the ultimate intention. 

"We have more to say, and will continue 
in spite of the tumult of the confused issues 
of the material plane, seeking to give you 
some idea of the balance of spiritual and 
material elements for which the warring 
nations are responsible. 

" Sufficient that the growth of the Spirit- 
ual is infinitely in excess of the suffering 
of the Material which is now so evident to 
you." 

Script No. io, June 3, 1918 

Obtained at Sydenham Hill, Bristol, 12:20 p.m. 
F.B.B. reading aloud from Boz's " Memoirs of 
Grimaldi." 

This script picks up the thread of the argument 
elaborated in the last, and proceeds to describe the 

[79] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

spiritual condition of the nations opposed to Germany 
in the war. 

^'Following on our late discourse, we 
would turn to the other side of the picture. 
Here we are involved in a far more complex 
condition of affairs. . . . 

"... Thus in the first place, though to 
outward appearance the whole subject seems 
to differentiate itself into two issues, — 
Right and Wrong, Liberty and Slavery, 
Divine and Diabolical, — this difference is 
more apparent on the surface than in its 
true inwardness. 

" To commence with : by taking the psy- 
chical conditions of the various oldest na- 
tions individually instead of in their com- 
plexity of combination, it is obvious to you 
and ourselves that the soul of Belgium was 
degraded by her vanity, her moral deprav- 
ity, her love of money, her treatment of 
those lower orders of humanity entrusted 
to her care. 

" But also the collective and individual 
life of her inhabitants left much to be de- 
sired in matters of propriety and rectitude. 
There was disease in the body-politic which 
called for treatment. And though the inter- 
ference was drastic, overwhelming, and ap- 

[80] 



THE SCRIPT 

parently out of proportion to the disease it 
was called in to combat, yet the apparent 
discrepancy is partly due to circumstances 
other than the present intention of spiritual 
control. For geographical reasons and 
other physical causes combine to explain 
the results. 

^' Yet great as the purging, great will be 
the reward, and the cleansing of the soul of 
this nation will initiate the revival and de- 
velopment of a spirit whose glory has never 
yet been equalled in the history of Fleming 
or Walloon. 

'^ But, as we have indicated, there was a 
totally unappreciated contamination in the 
kingdom, which had to be eradicated ere 
the spiritual, the artistic, the really great 
genius of the nation finds unrestricted play. 

"Then, following in a sequence geo- 
graphically, it is reasonable to couple both 
France and Italy in one common nation- 
ality. Each the product of a greatly gifted 
race, the Latin; each especially provided 
by the spirit of Nature, — the collective 
Race-spirit, — with extreme talents, and a 
corresponding race-mentality, each has 
failed, that the spirit of each, whilst de- 
veloping along lines of Art which, in the 

[8i] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

welding of the material with the expres- 
sion of the spiritual, were yet unconscious of 
the inner meaning of the symbolism which 
they portrayed. They perfected the Sym- 
bol whilst forgetting the great Cause of the 
Symbol. And for this they were not al- 
together responsible, in that each nation 
has been suffering so long from the influence 
(and the reaction from the influence) of 
a type of Catholicity which has concen- 
trated for so long its spiritual motive on 
the perfection and glory of its symbolism. 
The spirit was there, but occluded by the 
magnificence and spectacular materialism 
of its forms and symbols. 

" Here we digress, to draw your attention 
to the corruption of reason, judgment, and 
intuition to gain temporal power, and the 
darker ends which conduce to the temporal 
power. 

" In England, on the other hand the 
spiritual was openly expressed in the sym- 
bol, and with a true appreciation of the 
Original. The heart was sound, the brain 
was sound, but the body given over to its 
own desires and to the acquisition of that 
profit which should minister to its desires, — 
thus knowingly and consciously surrender- 

[82] 



THE SCRIPT 

ing and prostituting its conscious rectitude 
to the claims of Matter, and this through a 
most practical and natural expression of 
national genius/ 

^' The apostasy was not in spirit, although 
the results in the material plane were 
equally potent for evil, by reason of the 
great authority of that nation in the material 
plane. From those is much expected if they 
be greatly gifted in the spiritual, the in- 
tuitional; but from those who are more 
especially material in the balance of Nature, 
less is demanded in the spiritual, although 
more is expected in the material plane. 

''And the next: that complex group 
across the Atlantic. There is, in the nation, 
the Group-spirit, only a complex combina- 
tion of many orders of Spirit and Matter 
from the spirit-groups of the whole world. 
Even so; and it is to the credit of this 
Continent of Humanity that failing to be 
led by one consent through the medium of 
its Race-spirit, — that medium which is so 
potent in the nation to which it is now op- 
posed, it nevertheless, in its separate units, 
did at length after long delay and contra- 

1 Does this refer to England's talent for commercial adven- 
ture?— F.B.B. 

[83] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

diction and cross-purpose, respond with 
one heart to the call of that Law of Nature 
which is above all tribal groupings ; and like 
one individual intelligent corporation came 
forward, as one great country putting itself 
on the side of intrinsic Right. This being 
so, there is no going back; but committed 
with the force of their own individual in- 
tuition to the support of this Great Law, 
which is God, in that it is the direct repro- 
duction of God in His body of matter, they 
will never fail nor change until the canker 
be removed. 

"Young, inchoate, incapable of express- 
ing the Spirit on this plane of Matter by 
reason of the lack of experience of their 
body-politic so to express itself, it yet speaks 
with no uncertain voice, and shall prevail. 

"The other, the solitary land which 
should guard the East, has fallen, in that 
its undeveloped intuitions have fallen an 
easy prey to the intellectual control of the 
developed force within and without. 

" In spirit, she has also forgotten the 
Great Original in the glory and complexity 
of her symbolism. And her intuition, de- 
prived of the ballast of experience and ma- 
terial judgment, has, like all power uncon- 

[84] 



THE SCRIPT 

trolled, broken out in the direction of least 
resistance, following dimly in its unde- 
veloped sense of goodness the instincts of 
the Law of Nature, otherwise Love and 
Humanity: but like a crowd, unable to 
express itself, it has perverted a right in- 
tention to the selfishness of libertinism, mis- 
taking license for freedom, and the tawdry 
glitter of the grossly material manifestation 
for the high ideal.^ Here, as you will ob- 
serve, the humanity of the whole world lies 
between the upper and the nether millstone. 
Intent on destroying tyranny, it stands in 
danger of being ground to atoms by the 
lower. For Humanity senses its spiritual 
ideal in a true brotherhood of Man, bound 
from head to foot in a manifold and many- 
coloured mesh of love, human and divine. 
This is the true Democracy, grounded and 
founded on brotherhood and love of God 
and Man; Love which penetrates through 
every pore not only of Humanity but of the 
whole of Creation, — God's Body mani- 
fest: not with equality of the individual 
components, but in the equality of Sons of 
God, — cells in His Divine Body, but un- 

^ The actual script reads high ideal for the tawdry glitter ^ t^c. 
which is obviously a metathesis. — F.B.B. 

[85] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

equal, if so ye deem inequality, in the way 
of purpose. This is the true government, 
and it is inevitably approaching with ac- 
celerated motion, — not the so-called De- 
mocracy, which is sovereignty reversed, the 
Feet of Clay in power and controlling that 
which is over highly specialized, but that 
Humanity which is the original intent of 
Christianity bound in undying love and 
sympathy but still a Government of all in 
Love, by the higher and specialized ele- 
ments and intellects of the least material 
among the masses: equal in intuition as 
Sons of God, but unequal, in that material 
mastery and in that intellectual comprehen- 
sion and expression which make for the 
true and steady differentiation into the aris- 
tocracies and the intellectuals. These shew 
a difference. . . . Great the power of pure 
intellect with the power of perfect sym- 
pathy. The true aristocrat, the intuitive 
leader, the great soul or passion, needs In- 
tellect, needs Mind, but rules by virtue of 
that Sympathy intuitive and divine. Thus 
each specialised cell in the Divine Body 
of Humanity should contribute to the per- 
fect whole; not following that common law 
of the lowest instincts of jealousy, envy, and 

[86] 



THE SCRIPT 

cupidity, misnamed Democracy, but rather 
in that higher system of which Kingship 
and its accompanying system of government 
is the nearly perfect symbol, but which, in 
its spiritual perfection, has never yet been 
manifest on earth, by reason of the selfish- 
ness or folly of imperfect human nature 
enmeshed in the material. 

^' There is Freewill in Nature as in Man 
individually, and also in the great law of 
Nature which is the complete expression 
not only of God in Nature, but of God in 
Humanity. The war, terrible though it is 
in its present aspect, yet by its awakening 
of brotherly love, and its stimulating of the 
Spirit, has saved the whole world of Man 
from a thing infinitely more terrible, — the 
influence of Matter in the materialization 
of the masses, to the destruction of all things 
spiritual. 

^^This would have been the apostasy not 
of a race-spirit under the control of Intellect 
which started as a possessor of Spirit (with 
which it is in nearer association), but the 
surrender to the insane control of the Beast 
in Man impelled by exigent and unspiritual 
impulse to the destruction of all that is true 
and lovely and spiritual in this world below. 

[87] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Beware! ye ravers. Beware! ye fanatics, ye 
perverted and unbalanced dreamers of 
great things that, raving in the land, are 
leading and directing the Brute, the true 
Beast of the Apocalypse. 

" Ye not only involve yourselves, but the 
whole world of your ideals in one common 
ruin, and by misdirected freewill which is 
entirely perverted, set back the clock for 
generations. Now is the appointed time, 
for now Self and its infirmities are the 
pendulum swinging to the darkest night of 
barbarism. 

''Follow the Spirit! Yield to the in- 
fluence of the Divine, which would fain 
control you, — and the world advances by 
the longest stride it has ever taken, to the 
borders of the Kingdom, the Millenium. 

"Darkness and Light! Self and God; 
appeal to the lowest and the highest. 
Which, in the relief from the impending 
menace, will ye accept?" 

Script No. it 

Including Parts of Writings of July lO and 12 

The script of July lO was unfinished, and at the 
next sitting, two days later, the thread of the first 
was resumed. A portion of these scripts is reserved 

[ 88 ] 



THE SCRIPT 

for future publication, as it is hardly relevant to the 
subject-matter of the present volume. Both scripts 
are very difficult to decipher and neither was tran- 
scribed until December, 191 8. The parts here given 
may be taken in conjunction with the fragmentary 
script of March 13. 

From Script of July io 

"We would point out that the simplicity 
and lack of complexity in the personalities 
of the members of a clan, and the identity 
of their ancestry, will make for greater re- 
sponse intuitively to the vibrations of each. 
The question of sympathetic vibration is 
the key to all communication and expres- 
sion of Personality between both God and 
Man, for Sympathy responds and Antip- 
athy is a dissonance and makes for chaos 
in Life and Nature. 

" Strange to say, this vibrational influence, 
in as far as the material and non-spiritual 
vibrations are concerned, is intensified in 
the bulk and mass of non-living Matter 
which constitutes a district or country — 
which means that the Race-Spirit, as you 
call it, resides rather in that inanimate 
Matter than in the bodies of living persons. 
This will explain the longing for home 
which possesses all older-established races. 

[89] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

And although the constitution of boun- 
daries is usually held to be a purely artifi- 
cial arrangement, this is not so: but is in- 
stead the non-conscious obedience of the 
living to the dictates of the Racial Spirit 
which resides perpetually in the lands 
which races have long inhabited. 

"Thus when boundaries are infringed, 
the Race-Spirit is in revolt: inhabiting its 
environment but called upon to act on a liv- 
ing medium which is foreign to its nature. 
Thus, and in consequence, one of two things 
must happen: either the boundaries must 
be rectified, or the invading race must be 
transformed to the likeness and character- 
istics of the race which it has transplanted. 
This will not always be apparent, for in the 
course of generations it very often happens 
that the races which once possessed the land 
return as conquerors to the land of their 
fathers ; and this has happened more often 
than the living are wont to realize. 

" But in the war which is now raging, 
races absolutely and essentially contrasting 
are in strange territory, and until this is 
adjusted, there can be no peace whatever. 
The spirit of the Latin will never accept 
the Teuton, though he may gain a fortune 

[90] 



THE SCRIPT 

with Slavs and Flemings, though as regards 
the latter, with difficulty and resentment. 
But the storm passes and the moral force of 
the Teuton expansion is even now fully ex- 
pended and the wider significance of their 
ofifensive is now past. 

"They may rush and they may charge 
into new territory, but the spirit is dead and 
powers of Earth over which they would 
have control are now opposing and defeat- 
ing them. Their residence in the conquered 
lands is even now altering and converting 
the invader to a semblance of the natives he 
has slain. ^ 

"As we said, the End approaches, and 
four years, and the period of resistance of 
Matter will see the end. Russia awakens. 
Her soul calls her" . . . {here the script 
was interrupted) . 

I interpret this as meaning four years plus the 
period of the resistance of Matter; connecting this 
passage with the notion elsewhere found of the con- 
tinued movement of the waters after the storm has 
subsided. — F.B.B. 

* Compare Count Hertling's opinion, quoted on p. 128. 
It would be interesting to learn that there is any warrant for 
this strange statement in observed facts. — F.B.B. 



[91] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Script of July 12 

Only a few words of the last script had been de- 
ciphered when this sitting commenced. F.B.B. had 
seen that It had some bearing on the war, and as It 
had been necessary to break off, he commenced the pres- 
ent sitting with the question: — "You were telling 
us something of the War and the relations of the dif- 
ferent races Involved, but we were obliged to break 
off. Will you please say more on this subject? Do 
you still adhere to the date given for the end? When 
are we to expect Germany's great debacle In the 
West?" 

^'You will understand therefore that the 
limitations of boundaries, or rather, the re- 
sults of grouping, have their several condi- 
tions, the Race-Spirit being confined as a 
rule to certain areas which we have pre- 
viously referred to as Nodes or spheres of 
Influence in the general magnetic field of 
the Earth. 

''To appreciate this, you must first ap- 
preciate the close connection between Life 
and Electricity; Electricity being in fact 
the vehicle of Life, the connecting link, the 
flux of J and from. Spirit to Matter/ 

''This influence being entirely spiritual, 
fields of influence quite ubiquitous can be 

1 This was in a script dated 26 April. 
[92] 



THE SCRIPT 

drawn upon by the powers of incarnate 
Man, and can be concentrated by reactions 
of Matter . . . but these conditions will 
only procreate Life, and not the Entity, 
which demands the Involution of Spirit 
rather than its influence from without. 
Nevertheless as the prototypal energy of 
Spirit is involuted in nodes, its influence is 
manifest even without individual effort or 
expression/ 

^'Nevertheless once in this world's his- 
tory, a tribe or clan, by the exercise of com- 
mon consent, — or rather, as an early exhi- 
bition of Freewill in a group of entities 
acting by common consent as a consequence 
of blood-relationship and to a still greater 
degree by the unit interaction and intuition 
of advanced thinkers (commencing in a 
specialized branch of religious intuition), 
did separate itself from the community of 
Mankind and stand aloof from the Race of 
Man.2 

'' This was a preliminary to the final ad- 
vent of conscience and freewill in the indi- 
vidual, for with its advent — the prospect 

^ A paraphrase of this very obscure passage is attempted at 
the end of the transcript. — F.B.B. 

2 The sequence of the script is altered here for the purpose of 
clearness. — F.B.B. \ 

This obviously refers to the segregation of the Israelites, 

[93] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

of Individuality — Personal ^ — comes . . . 
the reception of a personal responsibility be- 
fore unknown save in the accepted Vehicle 
for such responsibility, possessed of Free- 
will throughout the Earth: and the Birth 
of the Christus in the individual became 
thus manifest. 

"With the Tribes of the original number 
scattered over the earth, responsible each 
according to his environment, do you doubt 
that the Vision of the Shepherds on the 
moonlit plains of Judea was indeed a true 
perception of the opening of a new era in 
the history of the world? Ye have no rea- 
son therefore to doubt the authenticity and 
historical accuracy of the Scripture narra- 
tive : for even as in the uninspired writing 
of the Hebrew Race-group, the History was 
detailed in obedience to the spiritual intent 
expressed to their chosen leaders essentially 
and in perfect truth, through an imperfect 
(or at any rate apparent) adjustment to 
Chronology and Fact, — so indeed the Ad- 
vent of a New Revelation was truly and 
accurately expressed both in matter of 
Time, Fact, and Locality, though to the 
material intellect no sure trace can be found 
in the Hebrew of history. 

[94] 



THE SCRIPT 

^' Hence you perceive that Spiritual par- 
able having no time or material expression, 
cannot tally with the written and accepted 
facts of Time and Place. Thev who found 
in the intuition of their spirit the remote 
and materially presented facts of the spirit- 
ual changes, strove to express in the 
language of their nation the impressions 
which, in their intuition, they felt to be 
spiritual facts. 

^'They were right: and, at the period be- 
fore and after the supposed date of Anno 
Domini^ the Embryo Individual Soul re- 
ceived the liberty of choice independently 
of the Fatherhood of the Race : and, as the 
Christus appeared on earth, there, in the 
Home of our Race, in the centre of the 
known world, at so late a date as the era 
accepted in the tradition of the Church, the 
Christ was born; not sporadically, but as a 
First-born, a First-fruit, which, emanating 
like the first intuition of Man in smallest 
form, — the Nucleus of a single individual, 
passed first through the medium of the 
head-branches of the Parent Race, through 
all the length and breadth of the known 
Earth. 

" Those nations which lay beyond the in- 

[95] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

fluence of these groupings but partially as- 
similated this phenomenon; and to this day 
are lacking in the softer influences upon 
which its morals were based. But by 
spreading over all the world and physically 
absorbing the temperament and spirit of 
the true Asiatic races, they can hope to grow 
in true grace ; and for this purpose long time 
must intervene. 

" They are the Philistines, the Sun-Wor- 
shippers, hard, and fierce, and bright, — 
and mundane and unspiritual as compared 
with the more spiritual nature of the mys- 
tic worshippers of the Moon. 

"What think you of the Birth of the 
Spirit, and its growth in Man? We have 
already told you that the emotions and in- 
tuitions only are handed down to the child 
from its parents. With the inheritance thus 
afforded for the reception of the parental 
knowledge, no increase in the Spirit was 
made for very many ages. Man was gov- 
erned by Instinct handed down from age to 
age through the medium of the Spirit of the 
Race, which, partly itself the resultant of 
material interactions, was yet affected by the 
Spirit of the Creator and became to a great 
extent receptive of His impressions. 

[96] 



THE SCRIPT 

"Thus in the Spirit of the Race the in- 
tuitions grew and developed until, in that 
Chosen Race, Man's emotions became fully 
incarnate, and all unspiritual though 
checked and controlled by the medium of 
his Guides. 

" But not yet did the Embryo Spirit of 
God, the Embryo Son of the Father inhabit 
the mansions which through countless ages 
were in course of preparation for His maj- 
esty and perfections. So, when the House 
was made in the likeness and Microcosm 
of God, and furnished by His Saints and in 
obedience to His instructions with the In- 
tuitions which are His attributes : and after 
the squaring and perfecting of the whole. 
He placed there a Son of His own in germ, 
a Personality of His own Splendour within 
this receptacle, — and left It there, a Babe 
in swaddling-clothes and for Its Minis- 
ters the Intuitions and Emotions, as serv- 
ants to His Majesty. And, thus equipped, 
He reigned. 

"There, in that House, It had the oppor- 
tunity of growing and developing to God- 
head, but powerless to open the mansion- 
door and come forth unless they who minis- 
tered to It were willing to obey. 

[97] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

" The Freewill lay with the servants and 
the preventive powers which material gross- 
ness oft resents. Through the influence of 
the servants, the Emotions, the very walls 
of the House may minister to the Royal 
Master,'^ stone calling to stone and beam to 
beam, until in perfect harmony the Edifice 
becomes part and parcel of the Divine In- 
habitant, — ^ becomes gilded and glorified, 
and transcends itself to a stage of spiritual 
glory; and, so transformed, becomes no 
longer Matter, but Spirit expressed in 
Matter. 

*' This would we dimly explain: and here 
in Galilee was the first stone instituted. 
With the Coming of the Christus comes re- 
sponsibility for His growth, and the power 
to gain that response truly; but again, the 
Volitions, — the Ministers — must volun- 
tarily place themselves in vibrational sym- 
pathy with the Infant growth. It is not 
easy to explain ; we can only appeal to your 
intuitions. But this we would say again : — 
The spiritual Truth of the Gospels is ab- 
solute and in perfect harmony with the 
Spirit; but material Intellect may strive in 

^ The script has "servant" but this seems certainly a slip. — 
F.B.B. 

[98] 



THE SCRIPT 

vain to find the substantial proofs of its 
manifestation in Matter. 

"Through the destruction of Matter, 
Spirit is oftentimes refreshed and evolved; 
and the spirituality of the East, — lost in 
this upheaval of the antithesis of true 
Emotion will in course of time result in its 
resurrection on a new basis of Reason. But 
not until the cause of her defection is 
removed.^ 

"There is now no road to this recovery- 
save in the destruction of those who are in 
hostility to universal Order. Mercifully 
they are but few, — though powerful 
through reason of the ignorance and waver- 
ing nature of the forces they control. For 
the same reason, the recovery will be swift 
and sure — But the influence must come 
from without, because the counter-influence 
is acting from without. Help must be 
given. The necessary sacrifice must be 
made; and the reward will be great ins 
very truth. 

"The responsibility is also great: and if, 
from a sense of ' laissez-faire^'' or unwill- 
ingness to risk the further strain which such 
action will involve, the nations of the 

* The passions stirred by the war? 

[99] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Earth refrain from intervening, — the en- 
emy, the representative of Force, the Ex- 
emplar of War, would turn all to his own 
advantage. 

'' Thus the chaos and welter of this great 
nation^ can be converted either to a mighty 
power of spiritual Good, or else can be 
seduced and degraded to be the Mallet in 
the Hands of Thor for the destruction of 
all things." 

On the Segregation of the Chosen 

Race 

Allusion has already been made to a 
script received on the 13th March, 1918. 
This script seems to merit some further con- 
sideration, and this will now be given. It 
has been deferred to this point, not only 
because of the special nature of the matter 
contained, but also for the reason that it 
must be taken in conjunction with a further 
writing received on the 12th July, and only 
lately deciphered owing to its cramped 
and difficult nature. There is a percep- 
tible variation in the handwriting of some 
of the scripts, and it was observed in the 

* Russia? 
[ 100 ] 



THE SCRIPT 

case of the Glastonbury writings that the 
caligraphy sometimes altered with the sub- 
ject-matter of the script. It may however 
be only a coincidence that the two scripts 
of 191 8 which deal most prominently with 
the subject of the Chosen Race appointed 
to reign and rule in the New Era, are both 
of a character exceptionally difficult to de- 
cipher. The writer has taken great pains 
to accomplish this task, but even now not 
with entire success. Still, patience and per- 
severance have to some extent been re- 
warded and the general sense has been made 
clear. 

Script of March 13 

The Spiritual Israel is now to be gathered 
and concentrated for further advance of 
the great plan of the Creator for the rais- 
ing of Humanity to a more spiritual con- 
dition, bringing about the Kingdom of God 
upon Earth. The New Race is by ancestry 
linked on to the Israel of old, since the 
Tribes of the original number have spread 
over the earth and intermingled with the 
outer nations. Even nations of absolutely 
alien blood thus contain those who may be 
qualified to be heirs of the Promise. The 

[lOl] 



^ 



G 



THE HILL OF VISION 

nations who trace their ancestry to the scat- 
tered tribes of the Israel of old-time are 
now to be found in the East and in the West. 
These nations therefore have had their share 
in the evangelizing of the peoples of the 
world. But some are as yet unregener- 
ate and do not recognize their origin or 
mission. 

Our blood is of the Chosen Race, but 
there are many others, including nations 
overseas. Some have not borne their part 
in the recent conflict and these must un- 
dergo purgation. 

Script of July 12 
px\raphrase of script 

With Explanatory Additions 

It is stated in a script of June ist that there 
are certain forces of an invisible nature 
affecting Matter, which are, as it were, the 
envelope of the Divine Will and Intention 
controlling Nature. 

Important among these is the efifect of 
the Sun's magnetism in inducing a west- 
ward flow of all animate things. The Sun's 
passage over the Earth is compared to the 
winding of a vast magnetic coil. 

[ 102] 



THE SCRIPT 

The superficial atoms on our globe are 
polarized in a westward flow, and certain 
spots on the face of the globe are developed. 
These ^^ act as nodes or centres of force, and 
can influence both materially and spiritu- 
ally the peoples that inhabit them." Look- 
ing back to a script dated April 26, a simi- 
lar description appears. ^'This world is 
co-ordinated by Lines and Ganglia of spirit- 
ual force, — ocean-currents in the world of 
the Spiritual, — moving ever under spirit- 
ual influence through the impalpable aether 
and sucking in through their vortices the 
mobile specks or motes or atoms, each of 
which represents that complexity, Man. 

^^ Man, in his complex nature, is moved 
by many influences of a material nature and 
he is generally only conscious of these in 
his impulses to travel and tribal exodus. 
He does not realize that behind these mate- 
rial motive forces lie the forms and schemes 
of spiritual development, instruments of a 
greater Impulse beyond his ken." 

Even earlier, in a writing on the 21st 
April, we are told that in the case of such 
localities as Athens, Rome, Jerusalem (and 
Glastonbury also is named), it is not simply 
the genius of a people that makes for the 

[ 103 ] 



^y 



THE HILL OF VISION 

power and influence wielded by these 
names and sites. Rather was it that the geo- 
graphical and natural conditions were in 
harmony with those special conditions of 
genius "which each particular race personi- 
fied in Man." Each unit of a race is a Mi- 
crocosm of the whole. Hence the impor- 
tance of grouping a nation in units, classes, 
and masses; for the characteristics of indi- 
viduals are "magnified, reduplicated, and 
rendered a millionfold more powerful by 
association." The reader may at this point 
turn to the script of July lo, in which the 
strange assertion is made that the Race- 
Spirit resides more in the soil than in the 
individuals who inhabit the district (see 
transcript). 

In another script of the same date, as yet 
only partially transcribed and therefore 
not included in this series, there occurs a 
passage which it may be permissible to 
quote here, as it concerns the question of 
individual versus racial freewill, and is a 
curiosity in its way: — "There is no doubt" 
it says " but that the Creator is strongly con- 
scious of the resistance of Matter, and that 
as Matter intensifies in vibration, so the 
Christ-consciousness advances. Thus He 

[ 104 ] 



THE SCRIPT 

decides the question of the Freewill of 
Man, and it is difficult to express. The 
true explanation of this problem is often a 
matter of the ijoill of the Creator, who de- 
sires independent individuality rather in 
the Race than in the personal emphasis of 
her tyrants." Attention is invited to the 
last significant statement. How it accords 
with the most recent phases of philosophic 
thought I am in no position to judge, as I 
have not read any modern works on the sub- 
ject We now turn to the script of July 
12, and this I would like to put in other 
words suggestive of my own impressions of 
its meaning. We are to understand that 
geographical boundaries (where not arbi- 
trarily fixed) are dependent on conditions 
inherent in the racial lie, the Race-spirit 
being confined as a rule to those special 
areas in the magnetic field of the earth with 
which the particular race with which that 
Spirit is associated have been for a long 
time involved. The magnetic life-current 
induced by the Solar action feeds the Life 
of the Race with its own energy as special- 
ized in each place that is the Metropolis 
of the racial life. The magnetic or elec- 
tric current is the vehicle of this nutrient 

[105] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

energy which has a spiritual source and is 
creative of life in the general sense. But 
this is only one of two modes of spiritual 
Involution, and it is the more external 
mode. It cannot create Being, in the sense 
of Soul, or individual Entity. It is the 
"prototypal" form of spiritual descent 
into Matter. But it assists in the process 
of collecting, separating, and focussing the 
life of a race around one or other of these 
centres or nodes. 

Once in the history of the world, a whole 
people, grouped about such a centre, de- 
veloped a racial individuality, a racial will 
and something like a common conscious- 
ness associated with a recognition of God 
as a Father in a spiritual sense of the Race. 
The clannish feeling of blood-relationship 
helped to separate this people from the 
outer world of men, and this process was 
assisted by the teachings derived from cer- 
tain advanced thinkers among them, who 
acted as foster-fathers of the new conscious- 
ness which was destined to be born in each 
member of the clan. This new conscious- 
ness brought at last the realization of moral 
responsibility and the liberty of self-deter- 
mination to each one. Its full accomplish- 

[io6] 



THE SCRIPT 

ment in the individual is described as the 
Birth of the Christ in each. The responsi- 
bility of the new personal consciousness 
varies according to the environment of the 
individual. 

Had this Race never been scattered, they 
could not have developed all varieties of 
spiritual achievement, nor could they have 
impregnated the whole human race outside 
with the germ of the new principle now 
born in them. But this they were destined 
to do, and thus, according to the scheme of 
the Creator, they were dispersed through- 
out the globe, to leaven the masses of men, 
and to spread the seeds of the Christ-con- 
sciousness throughout the earth. Such is 
the spiritual purpose underlying the segre- 
gation of Israel, and the Bible presents us 
with the record in fact, and parable har- 
monized with fact and accordant with it. 
So the new Spiritual Consciousness in Man, 
commencing as a tiny germ, as a grain of 
mustard-seed, in his heart or true emotional 
nature, is eventually brought to birth as an 
infant consciousness, and this is symbolized 
as the Babe in the Manger. '' Do you 
doubt," says the script, '' that the Vision of 
the Shepherds was indeed a true perception 

[107] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

of the opening of a new era in the History 
of the World? "^ 

The writing clearly indicates that the 
Israel of old was instructed by Divinely 
appointed Teachers and Guides. These, 
we may be sure, were of a high order of ad- 
vanced Humanity; individuals in whom the 
spiritual consciousness was fully developed. 
They had liberty of choice and could obey 
or disobey. Here and there, they may have 
been unfaithful to their trust: but under 
their tuition there is no doubt that the Race 
evolved the Idea and Worship of the One 
God, the Father of the race, and was conse- 
quently able to create from among the Sons 
of Men a group capable of receiving the 
Sonship of the Spirit. 

Two points arise in connection with this 
brief survey of the allusions in these scripts 
to the segregation and ultimate manifesta- 
tion of a Chosen People. 

(i) As to the idea of the segregation of 
a JRace and the differentiation of its charac- 
ter and religious intuitions under special 
natural conditions and subject to the guid- 
ance of great Teachers, may we not find in 

^ " Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth Peace to men 
of goodwill." 

[io8] 



THE SCRIPT 

the familiar facts of human association 
many analogies of this phenomenon? For 
example: a site is selected for a public 
school, and a Head Master is found who, in 
the course of a few years, succeeds in im- 
pressing upon the establishment a mark of 
individuality, even of personality not en- 
tirely his own, inculcating a strong sense of 
esprit de corps^ which tends, after his time, 
to increase rather than diminish. 

The very buildings, as it were, become 
impregnated with this influence, and insen- 
sibly modify the character of succeeding 
generations of students. 

(2) In the quest for light upon the ob- 
scure problem of the present location of 
the scattered tribes of Israel, may it not be 
possible that, forsaking the beaten tracks of 
ethnology, in this case a somewhat barren 
line of research, our enquiries might profit- 
ably be directed towards an analysis of the 
varying religious and social ideals prevail- 
ing in the several racial areas which have 
received a distinctive and characteristic im- 
pression through the preaching of Chris- 
tianity, and a comparison instituted between 
these severally and the prophetic characters y 

of the Twelve Tribes as given in Genesis. 

[109] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

Beyond the borders of the original 
Semite racial grouping there dwelt those 
fierce and warlike peoples whose undevel- 
oped nature only partially assimilated the 
"softer influences" upon which the new 
evolution of the spiritual man was based. 
Philistines, Hittites, Assyrians, we may 
think, among many others further removed 
yet in a geographical sense, were among 
these. How are we to distinguish their 
modern counterparts or representatives. 
The script gives us a clue, in the nature of 
the religious symbolism they respectively 
employed. Israel has a typically Lunar 
system of symbol in connection with her 
religious ideals, expressed in her priestly 
Times and Seasons, her Temple furniture, 
and in many other ways. In antithesis to 
this, we must look for evidences of Sun- 
worship and Solar symbolism among the 
"outer peoples." Hard they are, and 
bright and fierce and mundane, — unspirit- 
ual as compared with the Chosen Race. 
Their God is Baal, or his later representa- 
tives. Readers may follow out this line of 
enquiry for themselves. Let us call to 
mind that which is known of the primitive 
worship of the original peoples of Europe 

[no] 



THE SCRIPT 

and the nearer East, and in the light of these 
traces, let us examine the character of their 
modern representatives as modified by 
Christianity, together with the type of 
Christian worship and ideal they have 
evolved. 

But we can be under no misapprehen- 
sion as to the intention of the script when it 
speaks of those nations who '' to this day 
are lacking in the softer influence" afore- 
said, since the context gives the clue. They 
are to grow in true grace "by spreading 
over all the world and physically absorb- 
ing the temperament and spirit of the true 
Asiatic races." 

The use of the word "true" in this con- 
nection, if we rightly read the script, im- 
plies that the modern Philistines are not 
really Asiatic but of European stock, suffi- 
ciently nearly related in locale to be liable 
to be so regarded. The description would 
therefore apply well enough to the Otto- 
man, Bulgar, and Baltic Slav, and in this 
category we might perhaps include the 
Prussian or Brandenburger, the original 
Wendish and Lettish tribes which so 
long and so stoutly resisted all efforts at 
evangelization. 

[Ill] 



the hill of vision 

Script No. 12, August 21, 191 8 

Obtained at Sydenham Hill, Bristol, 4 p. M. Previ- 
ous conversation had been entirely on archaeological 
matters and the War had not been mentioned. J. A. 
held the pen, and F.B.B. read aloud continuously from 
an article he had written on the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

"When we said that August the twenty- 
fourth (jzV) would see the end of the enemy 
ofifensive, we spoke with a distinct con- 
sciousness of the spiritual intention; only 
the tendency in the mass of Matter to retain 
those impressions which are conveyed to it 
by its medium, follows the universal law of 
continued vibration for some period after 
the cessation of the impulse of the rising. 
Bear this in mind, and make no mistake 
on this score : a whole year may pass away 
before these impulses, absorbed by Matter 
and conveyed by its instrumentality into 
your plane, — to be there expressed, pass 
away into the silence of its interspaces. 

" But here we assert and reassert : the great 
force of the impulse has already expended 
itself and will never again be resumed. 

"We have quoted the twenty-fourth, be- 
cause on this date, — or rather, a period 
immediately following it, — that is to say, 

[112] 



THE SCRIPT 

during the sixty-six or sixty-eight hours 
immediately succeeding to it, you, if you 
perceive aright the symptoms which should 
be evident to you, cannot fail to perceive 
that which must inevitably ensue^ and from 
which you will realize indubitably that the 
spiritual tide of this great offensive has 
turned finally and irrevocably. 

" The tide once ebbing will flow no more, 
but the waves, though in their intermittent 
vehemence they may rise to the high-water 
mark, or surpass it for a moment, will yet 
be but instantaneous, or rather momentary 
impulses of a despairing foe: and the true 
tide irrevocably sinking, ebbing ever lower 
and lower, will at length, in a period of 
time (the period of which is the indication 
of the momentum and ponderosity of Mat- 
ter in concert with the freewill of Man), 
subside into the great calm which has no 
wave, no further rise nor ebb. 

^^ Heaven forfend lest this in turn yield 
to stagnation and useless) inertia!' — lest 
again the striving of the Spirit beat upon it 
and lash it into fresh fury! Watch, we say 
again, watch! with the eye of the Spirit, 
and you shall infallibly see and understand 
that we who have spoken in response to your 

[113] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

faith, do not speak without knowledge and 
authority. 

^'More we cannot say, — more we may 
not say, — and in very truth, more would 
be not only superabundant, but unseemly 
and calculated to defeat the ends of Spirit. 
For indeed they who are materially-minded 
might turn it to base uses. 

^^ Coloured with your hopes and tinctured 
with your individuality, — as coloured 
glasses colour the pure beams of light 
which penetrate them, — yet freed by Rea- 
son from this colouring, you shall see the 
pure and true residuum in you of absolute 
truth which is in that which you may ask 
and we are able to convey to your material 
conception. 

^'We in very truth speak as spirit to 
spirit, and only in so far as your spirit is 
attuned to an unselfish desire for knowledge 
to be applied to good ends. And even thus, 
we penetrating in, it is carried of yourselves 
by channels which, though tried and beaten 
paths to us, are yet unknown, or at least 
unappreciated by the limitations of your 
human consciousness. We, by these tried 
though unknown paths, can only convey to 
you that germ of the subliminal knowledge 

[114] 



THE SCRIPT 

from which in God's good time the great 
Tree of Comprehension shall arise, piercing 
the empyrean with its myriad branches, and 
absorbing in every pore that consciousness 
of spiritual Immanence which shall in 
course of time culminate in EXISTENCE IN 
TWO SPHERES, — even as the tree upon which 
we hang the allegory exists by virtue of its 
green and sun-kissed raiment in contrast 
with its dark and devious roots hidden 
beneath the dark soil of Matter. 

"There is no need for more at the mo- 
ment: but as you are doubtful and anxious, 
we do say this . . . watch, trust, and be- 
lieve! In a few days now ye shall know 
and understand." / 

" We who are known to you in the councils of 
the Watchers in the Radiant Sphere of Liberated 
Human Memory and Spirit thus write in the 
responsive vibrations of your own awakened 
Spirit." 



[115 I 



POSTSCRIPT 

Apart from the predictions both of war 
and of the ending of war, with their ex- 
traordinary verification in fact, these auto- 
matic writings are sufficiently remarkable 
from other points of view. The analysis of 
German character and its later development 
under stress of an inclusive materialism is 
exact even if it contains nothing particularly 
novel. This process was clear to many be- 
fore the war ; it is now obvious to all. The 
statements definitely made and constantly 
reiterated that there is much in the Teuton 
races that is not only of essential value to 
the world, but indispensable, and that the 
purgation of war will release this potency 
from its hitherto inhibiting bondage, mak- 
ing it operative and even bringing it into 
alliance with the civilized peoples of the 
West for the last fight against an evil 
greater even than the war, is one that at 
the present juncture will hardly be well re- 
ceived even though it has the sound reason 
of dispassionate men behind it. The fore- 

[ii6] 



POSTSCRIPT 

cast of social disruption sequent on the war 
is now being substantiated by events, and 
one would wish (admitting the credibility 
of the mysterious witnesses) that the ques- 
tion of the solution of this new menace 
were left less open as regards the point of 
time. The insistence of the communicating 
agencies on the fundamental fact of free 
will, not only in man but in the whole 
process of life, and the definition of time 
as only "the ratio of the resistance of Mat- 
ter to the interpenetration of the Spirit," 
must be accepted whatever one's philo- 
sophical standpoint; and this being so it 
is clear that no approximation of dates is 
at present possible, the matter rests in our 
hands, that is all. 

Throughout the communications are 
many references to some " Race " with 
many ramifications, that is destined to be 
the next ethnic group in whose hands is 
placed the working out of the next epoch 
of civilization. It is unfortunate that the 
very words and phrases which specify this 
race are absolutely illegible, and for the 
present the question must remain unan- 
swered. In any case the testimony is against 
anything approaching "Internationalism" 

[117] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

and in favour of definite and specific na- 
tionalism as a prime necessity for the de- 
velopment of personal as well as social 
character. The tendency today to extend 
that '^ democracy" which has wrecked mod- 
ern government and society by postulating 
an equality that does not exist and denying 
every element of 'selection and choice, to 
races as well as to individuals, putting all 
on the same plane of social value and po- 
tential, is one of the greatest dangers of the 
time. It is good to get a little sound sense 
along this line even if we are forced by its 
absence elsewhere to find it in the automatic 
writings of unknown, and probably un- 
knowable, personalities. 

Not that they are averse to democracy, 
but they apparently draw the same line 
between " democracy of ideal and de- 
mocracy of method," indicated in "The 
Nemesis of Mediocrity" which was being 
written just when these writings of F.B.B. 
and J. A. were being obtained, though this 
book was published some months before 
the writings themselves reached America. 
"The Watchers" warn both against that 
social and intellectual severance that cuts 
humanity in two, with a small class of the 

[xi8] 



POSTSCRIPT 

elect on the one hand and a vast proletarian 
mass on the other, and also against ^' that 
so-called democracy which is sovereignty 
reversed." ''Fear not Democracy" they 
say, '' if properly led and instructed," which 
is of course exactly the point; for, except 
for brief periods, it never has been either 
properly led or instructed, nor does it desire 
the one or the other. Improperly led, '' the 
utter ignorance of the multitude unchecked 
by any nobleness of instruction rose like a 
flame and swept the brilliant groups away," 
whenever in the past '' the jealousy of the 
possession of knowledge drove men to keep 
it in secret cults and in the bodies of so- 
cieties," and so it is now and forever will 
be, unless man can achieve the true De- 
mocracy. Where the false is "that com- 
mon law of the lowest instincts of jealousy, 
envy and cupidity," the true is " grounded 
and founded on brotherhood and love of 
God and man; love which penetrates 
through every pore not only of humanity 
but of the whole of Creation — God's Body 
manifest; not with equality of the sons of 
God — cells in His Divine Body, but un- 
equal in the way of purpose." This is 
neither Bolshevism (rather it is its an- 

[119] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

tithesis) nor is it democracy as this is now 
understood, but it is a very sane thing and 
is best expressed "in that higher system of 
which Kingship and its accompanying sys- 
tem of government is the nearly perfect 
symbol." 

The constant assertions of a readjustment, 
even a cataclysmic revolution, whereby the 
West is bound to fall and the East " come 
into its own," appearing as they do in the 
war prophecy of 191 1 and continuing down 
to the script of June, 19 18, are to be taken, 
it would seem, in a sense other than that of 
political, racial or social supremacy. The 
doctrine that is enunciated is that man being 
compounded of matter and spirit, there are 
two driving forces in the process of material 
redemption, intellect and intuition, the first 
being of the West and liable to degenera- 
tion into sheer materialism, the other of the 
East and subject to no such danger, but 
liable to isolation and abandonment when- 
ever the first balance is lost. The West has 
abandoned itself, through the prostitution 
of intellect, to materialism, and only through 
the war could its false standards be broken 
down, its evil motives be purged away, and 
the gate opened for the re-entrance of that 

[120] 



POSTSCRIPT 

vitalizing spirituality that is of the East and 
is of the soul of the East. The restoration 
of this balance through the new coming of 
this Eastern spirituality is clearly predicted 
as the result of the war and as its very reason 
for being, and by this the readjustment is 
to be effected that will make possible the 
"Great Days of Christ" wherein a new 
civilization will be born — a civilization that 
is given promise of indefinite continuance; 
since this is the last time that matter will 
triumph even temporarily over intellect and 
spirit. The curious parallel between this 
diagnosis and Professor Ferrero's theory of 
the quantitative and qualitative standards, 
Lisle March Phillipps' analysis of the re- 
spective contributions of the East and the 
West to the social synthesis in " Form and 
Colour," and M. Bergson's exposition of the 
difference and the relations between intel- 
lect and intuition in his " Creative Evolu- 
tion," will not escape the reader. 

To me the most interesting point is the 
correspondence between the philosophical 
elements that show themselves through the 
"War Script of 191 8" and the general 
system of philosophy that was finally per- 
fected in the Middle Ages along the three 

[121] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

lines of St. Thomas as representing Domin- 
ican, Duns Scotus Franciscan, and Hugh 
of St. Victor Augustinian philosophy. Per- 
haps it would be safer to say that the sug- 
gestion is rather of the sources from which 
Mediaeval philosophy derived — Plotinus, 
Philo, Origen, or even the earlier schools 
of the Peripatetics and the Pythagoreans. 
The doctrine of the " Martyrdom of Mat- 
ter" through the process of redemption by 
the interpenetration of Spirit is particularly 
striking. A similar doctrine is the common 
possession of all great philosophical sys- 
tems, whatever their date and source, and 
the assured discoveries of modern science 
seem to force a return to this primal idea. 
The scholastic postulate of the rationes 
seminales in opposition to the earlier doc- 
trine that matter in itself was nothingness, 
void of inherent potentiality but subject to 
transformation by the operation of Spirit 
penetrating it from without, seems now to 
have opened the door to the nineteenth cen- 
tury conception of blind evolution; a posi- 
tion no longer tenable. According to Plo- 
tinus " Matter is merely the space which 
conditions all corporeal existence; it is a 
pure possibility of being, mere nothingness, 

[122] 



POSTSCRIPT 

and it is identified with primitive evil," 
while Philo said the same in declaring the 
visible world to be not so much the result 
of emanation as of the application of Divine 
power to matter pre-existing in a chaotic 
state. Matter in this sense is undoubtedly 
Duns Scotus' ^^ Materia primo pr'ima^'' 
chaos "without form and void," the first 
reaction of the operation of Spirit being the 
sensible form. From this point the process 
of spiritual interpenetration is constant, 
though probably rhythmical ; and in the end 
Matter, which, as Albertus Magnus taught, 
is not eternal, is transformed, redeemed, 
transubstantiated, and is no longer Matter 
but Spirit. Redemption is therefore not 
only the ultimate destiny of man but of the 
entire universe of which matter is the mode. 
Startling and even sensational as are the 
War Predictions, I am inclined to think 
that, in spite of the lacunae, the occasional 
apparent inconsistencies, the downward 
trend towards something approximating 
sentimentalism now and then, the "War 
Script of 1918" finds its chief value in its 
philosophical possibilities. At all events 
it is a welcome prophylactic to the many 
post-Mediaeval philosophies, from Des- 

[123] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

cartes through Hobbes and Kant to Posi- 
tivism and Pragmatism. The world gained 
nothing when it abandoned the sacramental 
philosophy of Scholasticism (heir as it was 
of all the philosophies of the past from Neo- 
Platonism to the Pre-Platonists) for the 
intellectualist-materialist systems of mod- 
ernism. The world-before-the-war, and 
the war itself, and the present chaos of 
after-the-war, were the inevitable result. 
The future, if it is to be worth having, will 
be built on other foundations. 



[124] 



NOTES 

Note on the Script of June i 

There has been an opening of the vials of spiritual 
force of a new kind over all the civilized world. The 
result of this outbreak of spiritual energies of an un- 
accustomed kind has been in the first instance to create 
unexampled confusion. 

The ejEfect is seen in revolutionary movements, whose 
inwardness cannot be appreciated from a merely exter- 
nal or temporal survey. 

Germany is depicted as possessing a very perfectly 
organized Race-consciousness immensely strong in a ma- 
terial sense owing to its coherent structure, but in a 
state of spiritual coma. And its spiritual forces have 
been absorbed into intellectual activities of a corrupt 
order, expressing themselves in a national will to cap- 
ture and dominate the two worlds of Mind and Mat- 
ter, decreeing the sovereignty of German Kultur and 
the German Empire. 

The true evolutionary task of Germany is the ma- 
nipulation and conquest of all the forces of Matter. 
This is her gift, and its rightful exercise is necessary 
to the fulfilment of the great Intention of the scheme 
of Man's development. But at present the intention 
is perverted owing to the fissure in Germany's soul, 
which has severed her spiritual part from her material 
self, and her intelligence has allied itself exclusively 
with the latter. Her apostate Spirit wanders eastward 

[125] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

in vague dreams whilst her bodily part presses west- 
ward in frantic efiEorts at material dominion. But for 
this severance, she must infallibly have achieved her 
ambitions. 

But her failure in a material sense will so weaken 
the degraded elements of her nature, that her better 
part will ultimately have strength to assert once more 
Its dominion over the whole body-politic, and this will 
be brought about by her spiritual sufferings In the East, 
where she will amalgamate with herself all the " fallow 
and uncontrolled spirituality of the Eastern races." 

So much for Germany's characteristic perversion of 
the forces of the Spirit to material ends. For ourselves, 
we have to be on our guard against a yet more subtle 
danger, which, if allowed to continue, would paralyse 
spiritual energies and put an end to further progress or 
achievement on the part of Man, by producing a static 
condition of premature balance between Spirit and 
Matter, between the forces of Good and Evil. 

This dangerous tendency is one which does not ex- 
press itself in material action, but works, generally in 
a covert manner, for compromise of conflicting forces, 
compromise due to a confused conception of spiritual 
aims derived from a type of thought which though in 
essence spiritual, is enmeshed In all sorts of material 
conceptions more or less Intellectuallzed. The de- 
scription clearly applies to those mild and vaguely 
benevolent souls whose conception of spiritual triumph 
begins and ends with the idea of an earthly mlllenium 
of Rest, in which all the swords shall be prematurely 
beaten into ploughshares and the lion shall He down 
with the lamb. They cannot see that the lion is still 
a lion and a beast of prey, and that even whilst lying 

[126] 



NOTES 

down by the lamb, his jaws would be dripping with the 
slaver of expectancy. Nor do they understand that 
where spiritual principle is involved there is, and can 
be, no compromise and they will never understand that 
so long as the material will of Man remains in any 
degree unconverted, the spiritual warfare must be per- 
petually continued until the balance be finally turned. 
They would too often be content with a state of equi- 
poise, with a formal treaty planned to ensure the obliv- 
ion of all discord, and the wiping-out of all memories 
of wrong. In this category must be placed those who 
either actively or passively, and from whatever motive, 
whether humanitarian or personal, whether ideal or 
debased, sympathetic or cowardly or even merely lazy, 
are seeking a premature peace. They are, however 
unwittingly, opening the door to reaction and to the 
back-rush of thwarted material forces, and thus threat- 
ening ruin and disaster to the whole human race. 

To counter this spiritual error and prevent stagna- 
tion, the script tells us that a caustic irritant is applied 
to the body of the Allied nations. This process we 
can observe if we will in the recrudescence of senseless 
cruelties on the part of the foe, long after any conceiv- 
able military object could be served by them even from 
their point of view. 

Rape, arson, murder, and enslavement; the torture 
and starvation of prisoners, and other atrocities too 
numerous to mention have at last thoroughly inflamed 
the sore which had grown callous and even the most 
pacific minds have been stirred and galvanized into 
active opposition. 

As a typical instance of this extraordinary change, a 
single case may be cited. It was reported early in 

[127] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

December that a group of " conscientious objectors " 
forming part of a labour battalion in France, had been 
so horrified by the cruelties and devastations they had 
seen that they petitioned to be embodied in the fighting 
line, and became the most ardent of belligerents. 

Note on Script of March 13 

It may be long before events are seen in true perspec- 
tive, and the actual turning-point of the great conflict 
can be clearly seen: but we now have it from the lips 
of Count Hertling, a few days before his death, that 
the German military authorities had realized by July 
1 8th, 191 8, that all hope of winning the war had gone. 
Nevertheless they doggedly persisted and in the north- 
ern section, our greatest danger-point, their line was 
well maintained till the period of the great British 
advance. The culminating point of this strong offensive 
movement was reached on the 26th of August, when 
the British forces penetrated the German lines on a 
wide sector from Arras to Albert. The following ex- 
tract from the Daily Mail of August 26th, based upon 
Mr. Beach Thomas's report, is significant. 

" British troops won the greatest British victory of 
the war yesterday and on Saturday, driving the Ger- 
mans before them on a wide front between Arras and 
the Somme, and pushing rapidly to the outskirts of 
Bapaume, the chief German road and railway centre 
on the Somme front " 

and again, from the Report itself, we quote : — 

" Whatever happens, the present achievement is its 
own record. German confidence and hope are shattered 
as never before even approximately." 

[128] 



NOTES 

From Mr. H. Perry Robinson's report, published in 

the Daily News for August 26th. 

*' These are great days. It surely must be that they 
will even loom greatly in history, but they are certainly 
great to live in. . . . 

*' The sweep of our advance Is so rapid that no man 
can say where our advanced line as a whole may stand 
at any given moment, for every half-hour brings news 
that this or that village is in our hands. . . . German 
officers taken make no attempt to minimize the gravity 
of the catastrophe. . . . All practically seem to take 
the view that Germany's ultimate victory now is out 
of the question, though if the Allies mean to crush her 
utterly she can still fight on for at least a year or two 
to come" 

A Reuter's despatch printed in American newspapers 
of August 26th is quoted on p. xvii. 

The newspaper reports for the day succeeding the 
26th are generally restrained in tone, but the advance 
of the British and Allied forces continued from this 
time forward and the tide of the German advance 
was henceforth stemmed, and ceased finally to flow 
westward. 



[129] 



ATTESTATIONS 

Extract from the Daily Express of the 14th 
March, igig 

THE NEXT WAR! 



Allied Victory Sterile unless Bolshevism 
IS Crushed 



The Yellow Peril in a New Setting 

The next war will be between the Allies and 
the Bolsheviks. ... If the Allies fail, Bolshe- 
vism will destroy the culture of the world and 
the yellow races will become supreme. This is 
the prophecy of General Hoffmann, of Brest- 
Litovsk notoriety, made in the course of a re- 
markable interview with Mr. H. J. Greenwall, 
the Daily Express special correspondent in Ber- 
lin. There is irony in the fact that this picture 
of a Russian terror is drawn by the man who 
bullied Trotsky into accepting a humiliating 
peace. General Hoffmann believes that unless 
the armies of Lenin and Trotsky are crushed 
now, and that quickly, the Entente will lose the 
fruits of their victory. 

Germans in the Rhineland dread the Bol- 
shevist terror as much as General Hoffmann. 

[130] 






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ATTESTATIONS 

A demonstration at Cologne was strongly in 
favour of a Rhenish buffer State as a barrier 
against the Red Wave. 

From General Hoffmann's detailed remarks 
we select the following : 

" Without Lenin the Entente would never have won 
the war. But unless Bolshevism is crushed, the Allies' 
victory will be a sterile one, for the triumph of Bol- 
shevism means the end of the world's culture. Bol- 
shevism can only be crushed by force : it needs a large 
Entente army — marching side by side with a German 
army — to crush it. It must be done and done soon or 
it will too late. 

" In reply to a question as to the break-up of the Ger- 
man army he said he told Herr Scheidemann that if the 
Kaiser went away, the army would collapse . . . the 
long duration of the war and the need of men also 
played a part in the downfall of the German army. 
Until the end of August, 191 8, Ludendorff thought 
that the war was won, and he did not change that 
opinion until General Mangin's offensive took place. 

"... We should not have allowed Bolshevik repre- 
sentatives to come to Germany. Ludendorff was in a 
great hurry for me to make peace with the Russians 
and he telephoned instructions to me to make immediate 
peace as he wanted our troops withdrawn from the 
eastern to the western front. ..." 

"When and where will the next war take 
place?" I asked as a last question. 

" If the Entente statesmen are clever, the next war 
will be between the Allies and the Bolsheviks: other- 

[131] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

wise Bolshevism will kill European culture and the 
yellow race will reign supreme in Europe " 

was the General's reply. 

COPY OF LETTER 

FROM 

Sir William Barrett, F.R.S. 
dated April 2, 191 8 
Dear Mr, Bond: — 

I have been out of Town for a few days and your 
interesting letter enclosing the automatic script of that 
day (Good Friday, March 29th) has just reached me. 

Before I read the script with its confident statement 
that " the tide would turn on Easter Day " the first 
thing that caught my eye on opening the Westminster 
Gazette and other newspapers was the headline in capi- 
tal letters " The Tide turned on Easter Sunday." 

That is to say, the terrible apprehension the whole 
country has been under from the great German offen- 
sive during March, and its overflowing tide of disaster 
to our troops has been arrested on Easter Day. 

One can only hope and pray that the tide will turn 
now in our favour and that Easter Day may prove to 
be the critical turning point. 

With regard to the new procedure you have adopted 
in reading aloud to the automatist so that his mind may 
be interested in what you are reading, and his attention 
thus diverted from the script, — this is a most happy 
thought and an excellent procedure. The conscious self 

[132] 



ATTESTATIONS 

is thus engaged in thinking over and discussing what 
you are reading, and the subliminal self is more free to 

^^^' Yours sincerely 

Signed, W. F. BARRETT. 

3 1. Devonshire Place.W. 
April.a.igiS. 

P. S. That is why my plan of blindfolding the sit- 
ters in the Ouija experiments has been so useful. In 
fact, the sitter gets more rapid and coherent messages 
when thoroughly blindfold. I do hope you will be able 
to continue these interesting experiments, valuable from 
every point of view. 

ATTESTATION BY MISS MAUD 
WINGATE 

I was present at some of the sittings between March 
and December, 191 8, and can testify to the fact that 
Mr. Bond's reading was continuous and that Mr. 
Alleyne's writing was also continuous and was rapid 
and very uniform in speed. 

ATTESTATION BY MRS. ELLEN PARFITT 

I am witness to the date of the Script obtained on the 
13th of March, 191 8, referring to the end of the war, 
etc. I was also present on other occasions during the 
vvrriting and have in many cases signed the record of 
date. 

ATTESTATION BY MR. JOHN ALLEYNE 

I desire to state for the information of readers that 
I undertook these sittings for automatic writing purely 

[133] 



THE HILL OF VISION 

in deference to Sir William Barrett's suggestion as con- 
veyed by my friend Mr. Bond, and without any pre- 
conceived idea as to what might be the nature of the 
results. I am unable to recognize the resulting script 
as in any appreciable degree the reflection of any notions 
of my own, and although I am a wide general reader 
and possess a retentive memory, I find myself often curi- 
ously unable to retain a clear mental impression of 
these scripts after they have been read to me. It is by 
nature difficult for me to write a letter or to carry on 
a conversation in presence of any distracting influence 
such as music or talking by others. Yet during our sit- 
tings my attention is fully given to Mr. Bond's reading, 
and I feel my hand to be moved quite independently of 
my own volition. I have never seriously studied philos- 
ophy and have not followed the developments of mod- 
ern theosophical thought. With Spiritualism I have 
had scant sympathy. Applied Science and the Arts 
have always appealed to me and my hobbies have in- 
cluded many forms of Sport, together with poetry and 
literature. 

I am a retired officer, a conservative in politics, 
though in sympathy with the present movement for 
Reconstruction. 



[134] 






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